


Poorly Worded

by Kitty Eden (TheBigCat)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: AU, Abduction, And How To Get Rid Of Them, Audio 155: Forty-Five, Friendship, Gen, Godlike Beings Of Immense Power, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Wordplay, hell yeah get buckled up kids it's time for a PAINFUL ADVENTURE, more swearing than there is in canon, self-indulgent nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-03-14 21:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13599174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBigCat/pseuds/Kitty%20Eden
Summary: Seven, Ace, Hex. A military bunker; an impossible murder, an unstoppable foe, and an ancient library – nobody’s having fun today.





	1. Prologue: What The Parrot Said

**Author's Note:**

> This story is an AU of an already-existing Big Finish audio drama – 115: Forty-Five, which is an anthology of connected short stories featuring the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex. The final one of these stories pits them against arguably one of the best villains of Doctor Who (if not all time). I highly recommend listening to Forty-Five, or at least the final story (The Word Lord), which is available on the Big Finish website for a pretty small price, standalone. But even if you haven't, this story should (hopefully) still make sense?
> 
> This is a very self-indulgent story, by the way. I referenced a lot of other audios (nothing immensely spoilerific, don't worry) and generally didn't take myself too seriously at all.
> 
> Thanks to Mags from the Yuletide Discord for providing me with a cool history lesson on Alexandria and lynch mobs, to florencedrunk from the same place for general support and cool one-liners, and to chidiandthegoatsyay for betaing and providing a general final check-over! No thanks at all go to Ruby, who keeps enabling me to do ridiculous things and writing stuff such as this.
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> **Introducing our intrepid adventurers in time and space!**  
>   
> 
> _The mysterious, enigmatic traveler only known as the Doctor! Intergalactic righter of wrongs; defender of the defenseless; also extremely accomplished (debatably) at playing the spoons. Currently in his seventh incarnation, the Doctor is shorter and even more Scottish and Machiavellian than ever before._
> 
>  
> 
> _Ace McShane - in her own words, "I'm from a dysfunctional family and I cope by blowing things up. What's your excuse?" Righteously determined, gleeful in the presence of high explosives and bacon sandwiches, and in the habit of calling the Doctor 'Professor', Ace is possibly one of the few people in the universe who could get away with nicknaming a Time Lord and only suffering minor nose boops._
> 
>  
> 
> _While undercover at a hospital in the year 2021, the Doctor and Ace ended up recruiting a staff nurse named Thomas Hector Schofield - or, as he prefers to be known, Hex, to help them deal with a Cyberman problem, and eventually to travel with them. Hex is more often than not a complete ball of anxiety and nerves, and his catchphrase is 'oh my god', which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about him._
> 
>  
> 
> _Together, they fight: Aliens! Crime! Evil dictatorships! A stuffed bear, that one time! Sentient music! Marriage contracts! ...all of the above?_
> 
>  
> 
> _And now - to our story..._

  _Okay, stop me if you've heard this one before._

_A man buys a pet parrot and brings him home, right? But the parrot must originally have come from a bad sort of place, because it instantly starts insulting him, and gets really nasty about it, too. So the man picks up the parrot and tosses him into the freezer to teach him a lesson, see? And he hears the bird squawking for a few minutes, but all of a sudden the parrot is quiet. And the man opens the freezer door and the parrot walks out, looks up at him and says, "I apologize for offending you, and I humbly ask your forgiveness."_

_The man, surprised but pleased, says –_

_...oh! Er, sorry, Mr von Gratton, I didn't see you there. I was just – I was telling a joke, I apologize. I – I'm paying attention now._

_No, nobody's inside your room. Trust me, we would have seen them come in – we were just distracted; having a laugh, you know? You're planning to retire for the evening, right?_

_Well, carry on._

The door to the ambassador's private room then shuts, with the ambassador himself now inside. The guards, the two of them, return to their positions just outside the door, markedly more subdued than before. And exactly four point five seconds later, the security camera inside Alexander von Gratton's private room flickers and sparks and cuts out.

And outside the room, the two guards (one of them already wondering if he should wait for a bit until telling his next joke, or just start here and now) hear a noise – or three of them, to be precise. The noises are as follows:

(1)  _Bang._ (2)  _Bang._ (3)  _Thump._

And this is the cue for the guards to meet each other's eyes, terrified and horrified, and then switch to grimly professional in an instant, working together to break down the door of the room.

And as they cross the threshold, they see what could easily be deemed the nightmare scenario – Alexander von Gratton, the ambassador that they have been tasked to protect with nothing less than their own lives, lying dead on the ground, a bullet hole through the head and the heart.

It's murder, plain and simple. The gun that did it is nowhere to be seen. The  _person_ that did it is nowhere to be seen. It's a complete catastrophe _,_ because Alexander von Gratton was the American consul to the Far East, and as far as every major power on Earth is concerned, this is a diplomatic nightmare. The murder couldn't have come at a worse time – this is the largest gathering of diplomats in centuries, and an absolute world peace treaty was in the works.

With the death of von Gratton, all that could be over within less than a day.

But the thing is – the suite he was in was completely secure in every way, and if anybody had entered through the only door into the room, the guards (as distracted as they could be at times) would have seen them. The bunker in general is possibly the most secure place on Earth, and any outside forces would have been stopped before they got within even two-hundred metres of the border. They're in the middle of  _Antarctica_ , for god's sake, and only a select group of individuals know that the bunker even exists.

The murder is completely impossible.

Nobody could have killed him.

* * *

Five minutes later, the Ranulph Fiennes Bunker is in chaos. Accusations are flying left, right and center, and security is struggling to keep control. Security feeds are being rewound, watched, and watched again, but without any luck. The killer, whoever they are, are nowhere to be found.

Seven minutes. A transmitter has been activated – the only one on the premises. It's a distress signal, transmitting to every military force off the coast of Antarctica, and every nation in the world will be scrambling to collect their delegates at this very second. The Earth, within less than forty-five minutes, will be in a state of complete world war.

Nine minutes. Something impossible – well, slightly less possible than you would be used to – occurs. A deceptively small blue box folds itself neatly but loudly into existence in the corner of one of the long grey hallways of the bunker, and comes to rest with a final flash of its upper light.

The door opens. A young woman in a red leather jacket pokes her head around the door-frame; frowns, asks: "Professor, were we meant to be going anywhere in particular?"

She steps out fully from the box, glancing up and down the hallway. A young man, about her age, joins her, and he's also frowning. "Wow," he says sardonically, "another empty corridor. Well," and here he heaves a theatrical sigh, "at least things don't get  _boring_ with you two."

A third person joins them – a short man with a Panama hat, twirling a black umbrella. He shuts the door of the blue box behind him, also frowning – "I admit this isn't quite where I anticipated we'd land," he says, "but we can't rule out the possibility that this is precisely where we are meant to be."

"Yeah, Hex," says the girl cheerfully. "I'm sure people'll be shooting at us any time soon. We'll feel right at home then."

" _Who the hell are you three?_ " says a voice from down the hallway, and there is the loud and distinct sound of a gun clicking.

Jump cut to barely a minute later, and the three unexpected arrivals are backed up against the wall with their hands all raised above their heads. Captain Hurst, the man with the gun, looks terrified and intimidating and furious. But mainly those last two.

"Start talking!" he barks at them.

"See," says the young woman, seemingly unfazed by the situation that they've found themselves in. "I told you there'd be guns involved sooner or later."

"Why am I not comforted by this?" the young man wonders.

"I'll ask you again," says Captain Hurst. "This is a maximum-security military bunker, and nobody gets in without clearance. How did you do it?  _Who_ ," he brandishes his gun significantly, "are you  _working for?_ "

"And I'll tell you  _again,_ Captain Hurst," says the little man with the umbrella quite furiously – apparently this conversation has been going on for a while – "I'm  _self-employed._ "

Jump forwards again, this time for just five-point-four minutes, and now the situation appears to have been resolved. A higher-up by the name of Commander Claire Spencer knows the little man – calls him the 'Doctor', says she respects his authority and work, and invites him and his friends (who he introduces as Miss Ace and Mister Hex) to help her solve a murder and what could quickly become an international incident if they're not careful.

The Doctor, of course, agrees to help, and this is where they find themselves now – in an elevator, going down to the master control center.

Commander Spencer ("call me Claire, Doctor") explains about the bunker – 50 miles from civilization, any movement in a 200 mile radius investigated via satellite, so closely monitored and tracked and checked that the only non-human living creature within its bounds is the spider in the basement that they keep as a pet. Despite all the recording and monitoring, the system is wiped and rebooted every 45 hours – no data is ever stored. It's a complete information dead zone.

And despite all of this, a murder has been committed and a man is dead and things are dangerously close to getting out of hand. And if one murder has been committed, what's there to say that another won't be soon?

So as they approach the control center, where all the recordings and monitoring equipment are kept, Ace suggests that they move everybody into their blue box, their TARDIS. It's much bigger on the inside, she says, and can easily fit everybody in. That way, everybody will be safe, leaving them free to solve the murder without worry of more incidents.

"Yes, good thinking, Ace," says the Doctor, digging around in his voluminous pockets for something and emerging with two walkie-talkies – one of which he passes to Ace. "Would you and Captain Hurst mind taking care of that? And do stay in touch."

She nods, and Claire Spencer sends out a call for everybody to gather together, and they depart to take care of the delegates, and within minutes the Doctor, Hex, and Claire are at the control center.

"They'll be fine, right?" Hex says somewhat anxiously. "I mean, if there's a murderer on the loose –"

"Indubitably," the Doctor says, and they enter the control room. "Nobody can get into the TARDIS to hurt those people, especially with Ace there."

And maybe that was his first mistake – or one of them, at least, because several minutes later, while waiting for the system to complete an analysis of everything said inside the bunker within the last forty-five hours, he is talking with Claire Spencer while Hex flips through the one piece of literature in the entire base – the Bunker Protocol Guide. And maybe he's gotten complacent in his old age, or maybe it was just a simple slip of the tongue, and not a single person could fault him for that, could they?

"Your companions," says Claire – the system is taking forty-five percent longer than usual to load, and there is nothing they can do but wait – "they seem very intelligent."

The Doctor chuckles lowly, and – fondly? – "oh, they are," he says, "they very much are."

(Hex peeks up from behind his book, curious.)

"You must worry," Claire says idly, tapping out a pattern with her fingernails on the desk she's seated at. "I've read the files, I've seen the sort of life you lead. There must always be some sort of – fear. That you'll lose them."

The Doctor's eyes go dark and other for a second, but it's so quick you might miss it and he's smiling serenely almost immediately.

"I wouldn't worry," says the Doctor. "Nobody's going to separate us anytime soon – not if I have anything to say about it."

And he says it so confidently, as if it's a solid, inarguable  _fact,_  that you might well believe him.

The system loads, and the Doctor begins combing through data patterns and word frequencies and security tapes, and no more is said on the subject.

Exactly four minutes and fifty seconds later, all hell breaks loose.


	2. Chapter One: Last Words

 

Ace was feeling rather pleased with herself. More specifically, she was feeling rather pleased with the speed and efficiency involved in moving pretty much the entirety of the Ranulph Fiennes Bunker into a (seemingly) small, enclosed box in what couldn't be more than just about five minutes – no small feat, when you considered just how many people there were. At an estimate, there were currently close to four hundred and fifty people currently occupying the TARDIS console room, which seemed to have expanded specifically in order to fit everybody in. It was probably the most crowded that Ace had ever seen the time machine, especially since there were usually no more than three people inside at any given time.

The plan seemed to have gone off smoothly, for a change. Ace rather liked it this way, although there was still the small problem of the delegates, who were all slowly realizing that they didn't need translators anymore, and that the 'panic room' that they had all entered into was a lot bigger on the inside than it had first appeared.

Well, whatever. Hopefully, if there were any explanations needed later on, the Doctor would be the one handling it, not her. And speaking of which...

She clicked down the talk button of her walkie-talkie. "Everybody's in," she reported to the Doctor. "Delegates, soldiers – the works."

" _Excellent,_ " came his almost-instant reply. He sounded legitimately pleased with the situation. " _And I think we've made a breakthrough of the rather crucial sort._ "

Ace's eyebrows raised slightly. "Well, that was quick. Want to share?"

" _No time,_ " said the Doctor. " _I'll explain –_ "

"Later, yeah. I know." She rolled her eyes; this was a particularly tiresome in-joke that was barely even a joke anymore. "This better be good, Professor."

" _It is,_ " he promised, " _or rather, it has the potential to get rather nasty if you don't do something for me right now. I need you to find a small red switch located underneath the TARDIS console. It should be close to the central column._ "

"All right, I'll take your word for it. Near the central column?" Ace held the walkie-talkie to her ear with one shoulder as she leaned down to examine the space underneath the console. "All I can see is some sort of access point, Doctor. And it's welded shut."

There was a brief muttered curse from the Doctor, and then –  _"of course, I must have sealed it up. Stupid. Stupid, stupid. Ace, you're going to need to find a way to prise it open –"_

Before he whatever he was going to say could be heard, something else obscured all noise in the TARDIS – a loud  _bang,_ accompanied by a vivid flash of light that caused everybody gathered to cry out in alarm and attempt to shield their eyes. Ace gritted her teeth and squinted – there was  _something_ forming on the other side of the room, a vaguely humanoid shape that was becoming more and more distinct by the moment. And then, within slightly less than five seconds, the ball of light exploded _,_ quite suddenly, throwing everybody who hadn't had the sense to back off  _away_ from it – into the wall, sprawling across the floor.

"Good  _morning!_ " yelled a new, unfamiliar voice exuberantly, and Ace, who had been shielded from most of the blast by the console, looked around the edge cautiously to see the source of it.

There was a man, balancing on one leg for apparently no reason at all, and everything about him made no sense _._ There was something about his geometry that didn't quite seem to be right – it looked like he had been constructed on a different plane of reality to the one that he was currently existing on. His scarf – long, multi-colored, strangely familiar; and his hair was –  _well._ It  _was._

"You know, just a thought," continued the man, tapping his chin in a theatrical manner and exaggerating a frown. "Maybe senseless violence isn't the best solution to all of my problems. Like, I  _know_ that  _some_ people manage to do things in life without killing a bunch of people every day, and recently, I've been thinking to myself –  _hey,_ why not try it? Oh- whoa!" He looked down into his hands, rather suddenly. His eyebrows rose markedly. "What's this? – where did that gun come from?"

He swivelled on his heel, brushing past terrified, speechless delegates and soldiers that were raising their guns tentatively in his direction, and hopped up to sit ever-so-casually on the edge of the console, examining the laser-gun that had appeared, apropos of nowhere, in his grip. He twirled it absently from hand to hand. "Okay, what was I saying? Something about... not shooting people? I really can't remember." He turned from person, appealing to them with widened eyes. "Somebody? Anybody?"

"Put the gun down, toerag," Ace snapped, rising from her temporary hiding spot behind the console.

" _Oh!_  Hello there!" Now the man was flipping the gun around just one hand, seemingly without any worry that it might go off by accident. He tossed it up and caught it neatly, and there was something dangerous in the not-entirely-pleasant smile that he shot in her direction. "Dorothy McShane – what a pleasant surprise! I suppose you're going to try to stop me from doing – well, whatever. You hero types are  _all_ the same."

"I said,  _put the gun down._ " Ace's teeth were gritted. "I don't know  _who you are_ or  _how you got in here,_ but –"

The man yawned loudly, cutting her off. "You know, going back to that thing from earlier. About not killing a bunch of people?  _Yeah._ It was a nice thought when I  _didn't_ have a gun in my hand." Flip, flip. "But, y'know." He caught it properly, and swung around to aim it at the nearest person – a delegate who Ace didn't even know the name of. "That's kinda boring. New opinion on pacifism!" The safety catch went off, and the laser gun clicked once. The man smiled, and there were far too many teeth inside his mouth and they were  _all_ far too sharp. "Basically,  _fuck it._ "

The console room exploded with the sound of laser fire and screaming – and above all of it, the madman's laughter, sounding like a million mirrors shattering. In the center of it all was Ace, staring at the man in complete disbelief.

"Professor," said Ace in a low whisper, gripping the walkie-talkie so tight that her knuckles were beginning to go white. "Remember how you said that nobody could get into the TARDIS?"

A crackle, a pause.  _"I do. What's-?"_

"Somebody's in here, with us," she said, cutting across him, "and he's got a  _gun._ He – he just appeared, right out of nowhere, and shot  _five people_."

The man in question grinned like a lunatic, and theatrically blew some non-existent smoke off the end of the futuristic-looking laser weapon he was holding. "Four-point-five, I think you'll find!" he corrected, loudly and cheerfully, nudging a body with his foot. "Ah, yes – look here, this one right here – she's still alive. I don't consider it a proper shot unless they're  _dead,_ you know?" He raised the gun once more, and pointed it at the unfortunate woman. "So why not make it a full set, hm?"

By this point, Ace had rather empathically had enough _._ Breathing heavily, she slammed the walkie-talkie onto the console, and stalked up to the man, ignoring the faint sound of the Doctor asking over the radio, in increasingly panicked tones, what was going on. "Who the  _hell_ are you and  _what are you doing in the TARDIS?"_ she hissed – eyes narrowed, fists clenched, practically vibrating with anger _._

The man seemed to find this almost amusing, but he lowered the gun to his side anyway. "Oh, me?" he said lightly. "I'm Nobody."

"I  _asked you a question-"_ Ace began, furious.

"And I  _gave you an answer_ ," interrupted the man – saying the words slowly, as if explaining a simple concept to a particularly dim child. He rolled his eyes in an exaggerated fashion – Ace noticed for the first time that they were dark, slightly reddened slits, like a feral, alien cat. "I just told you who I am. I'm Nobody No-One! I'm a Word Lord! I'm from a universe forty-five billion dimensions to the left this one, and you lovely folk have  _very recently_ given me an open invitation to just wander into this gorgeous TARDIS of yours!"

"We never gave you any sort of invitation, you  _dirtbag,_ " Ace spat.

"Oh – yeah, no, I don't think you, personally did," said Nobody, apparently unconcerned about just how angry Ace was. "The  _Doctor,_ though..."

"You're  _lying!_ " she yelled. "Why would the Doctor let you in here? You're  _insane!_ "

"It couldn't be my charming personality and incredible social skills?" Nobody offered.

" _You just shot five people!_ " Ace screamed.

"Well, we can't all be perfect," Nobody said, shrugging in a manner that indicated he didn't care in the least, "and speaking of which – let's bring that number up to six!" He aimed the gun over his shoulder, and fired without looking. Behind him, a tall Russian man – who had been attempting to get to the TARDIS doors while Nobody's attention was held away – fell to the ground with a choked gurgle. "Oh, I guess he's dead now. Itchy trigger finger – you know how it is."

"You're  _mad!_ " Ace yelled. "They – he wasn't doing anything! You're completely insane!"

"Actually, it's kind of funny you should mention that," said Nobody with a contemplative look on his face. "Because I'm not insane, but a frankly  _ridiculous_  amount of people have been telling me I am lately. Which is  _absurd,_ because, well, look at me!" He gestured to himself with the barrel of the gun. "But there's got to be some reason people keep making assumptions – oh, hang on a minute." He leapt off the edge of the console, and shot another delegate, straight through their heart. This time, the victim hadn't even been doing anything at the time, only cowering in the corner of the TARDIS and muttering to herself indistinctly in Chinese. "Pew! Sorry about that, itchy fingers, etcetera, etcetera. Plus, I really didn't like the way she was looking at me."

"She wasn't even looking at you, you  _lunatic!_ "

"Exactly – I so do love to be the centre of attention, don't you?" He turned that sharp, impossible grin onto her. "Now, where was I? Oh, right – insanity. Me. It might be the hair, do you think? Maybe I should change my hair." He ran a hand almost self-consciously through it. "But I do so love the hair..."

"Get  _out of the TARDIS!_ " Ace screamed. Her face was turning red and her voice was starting to get raw from yelling, but she didn't care. The only thing she especially cared about at that moment was the fact that she had no weapons on her and none close by, but that was only secondary compared to her complete outrage over this man and his actions. "You don't lay  _another finger_ on another one of these people! They are under  _my_ protection! Take your  _hair_ and your  _scarf_ and your  _gun,_ and  _get the fuck out of my home!_ "

There was a brief silence. It didn't last for long.

"Oh,  _wow,_ " Nobody said. He didn't seem intimidated at all by her, more... impressed, as if he had just watched a particularly surprising theatrical performance. "Did you-? Did you just threaten me? And  _order me around?_ "

Ace just growled wordlessly, apparently out of things to say to him.

Nobody looked surprised now. "Gods above, it's been  _so long_ since somebody tried to tell me what to do. I... you know what? I rather think I  _missed_ it. Do me a favour and do that again."

"These are people's lives you're playing with!" Ace hissed. "Do you think this is some sorta  _game?"_

"Hm... well, yes – yes, actually, I do. It's better than Monopoly, at any rate." He levelled an amused look in her direction. "Go on! Tell me not to shoot anybody else."

"I've had quite enough of this!" said Captain Hurst, the commanding officer that had come with Ace in order to help protect the delegates. He stepped forwards, unholstering his own gun, and aimed it at Nobody, who didn't even flinch, only smiling. "Miss Ace, please step back."

And Ace, rather looking forwards to this already did, and the Captain aimed and fired without preamble, but instead of shooting, the gun only produced a  _click._ The Captain looked down at his gun in confusion.

"That's the thing about this place," Nobody said off-handedly. "As long as you're inside the walls of the TARDIS, you're subject to this neat little thing that the Time Lords like to call," he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers, "'temporal grace'. It means that your weapons  _just don't work_ here. Which is handy if the person you're trying to stop is  _subject_ to those laws _,_ but –" he waggled his laser gun in the air pointedly. " –guess which one of us is  _not_ human,  _not_ subject to those laws, and has a really cool gun?"

Ace saw what was coming next before it even happened, and had already opened her mouth to yell in protest, but Nobody was faster than her. In less time than it would take you to blink, Nobody had fired again, and Captain Hurst was lying dead on the floor, his gun still in his hand and his eyes blank and staring.

" _And another one bites the dust!_ " Nobody sang cheerfully. "Ah, fun times, fun times – ahh, we're really building up a collection of dead bodies in here, aren't we? Maybe we should have an exhibition! Or a corpse party! I hear those are all the rage nowadays."

Ace was shaking now. " _Why the fuck did you do that?_ "

"Well, he  _was_ going to shoot me," Nobody said, returning to his position on the console and crossing one leg over the other. "Turnabout is fair play, you know! Now, let's see- there's... hm, one-two-three-four — well, let's say four-hundred-twenty people still alive, excluding you and me. Plenty left!"

"Left for  _what,_ you lunatic?"

"That... is entirely up to you!" Nobody's voice lowered considerably, and his eyes narrowed. "Well? Tell me not to shoot anybody else!"

"Why  _should I_?" Ace yelled back at him. "It's not like you're going to  _listen-"_

 _"Wrong answer!"_  Another delegate hit the ground, the hole through his chest sizzling. " _Ha! –_ although that one wasn't as much fun, he didn't even try to  _run_ –"

"Why are you doing this?!" Ace demanded.

Nobody tapped his gun to his lips, and pondered this for a moment. "Hm... I really don't know, to be honest. It might be because I'm bored – that seems likely! Although it's equally as likely that I'm doing it because this duologue between the two of that we've got going here... well, it's scintillating. Absolutely top quality character dialogue. Should we do some more?"

Instead of responding, Ace lunged suddenly – but not at Nobody. Instead, she went directly for the button on the console that she knew would open the TARDIS doors. And they did, swinging open immediately with much more speed than they normally ever did, as if the TARDIS herself was as anxious about the entire situation as most of her passengers were.

"Get out!" Ace called to the remaining delegates and soldiers, moving quickly and putting herself physically in-between them and the Word Lord, who looked as amused by the situation as he had been for the last few minutes. "Don't talk, don't try to do anything, just  _get out_ as fast as you can –"

They barely needed encouraging. There was a sudden mad rush for the exit, which Nobody did absolutely nothing to stop until the very end, when the last few people were cramming themselves through the open doors.

With a sudden click of his fingers, the door slammed shut, leaving just him, Ace, and a Canadian dignitary inside the console room. The Canadian, for his part, looked completely terrified, and cast quick, jerky glances around the room before beginning to tug repeatedly on the closed door. Ace dove back to the console and started pounding furiously on the button for the doors. It didn't have any effect at all, although the TARDIS was apparently just as distressed at this situation as she was – the lights began to flicker erratically, and somewhere in the distance an alarm bell was chiming.

"And now we're alone again," Nobody sighed theatrically, sliding off the console to stand in the middle of the console room. "Just you and I and the stars. Oh, and our third wheel over here," he added, shooting a look at the man, still tugging ineffectually on the doors.

"Get away from him, scumbag," Ace growled, abandoning the console and curling her hands into tight fists.

"Or you'll what _?_  Fight me? Now, I'd pay to see that." He sauntered over, quite casually, towards the sealed exit, channelling the mood of somebody going on a nice, relaxing stroll in the park.

"I –" Ace began – but Nobody, quick as a cobra striking, had already grabbed the man.

"Go on! Beg me not to shoot this man!" he yelled, restraining the unfortunate delegate with seemingly no effort at all – wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing his hand over the man's mouth so tight that it seemed that he could barely breathe. He tapped the barrel of his gun against the side of the man's head. " _Plead_ with me. Convince me not to do it!"

" _Fuck you!_ " screamed Ace, nearly in tears. "I know you're gonna do it whether I beg or not – there's no point!  _Leave us alone!_ "

"Hmm..." Nobody was considering again, doing the theatrical gun tap against his lips, but this only lasted for a second. "... _nah._ No fun that way. All right, ten seconds left to live!" He raised the gun back to his victim's head – there were now tears running down the poor man's cheeks. "Nine! Eight –"

 _Sorry, Professor,_ thought Ace, who had only lasted this long because of something that the Doctor said once that went  _something something you're no use to me like this_ , but at this point all self-control was gone. And with the absence of her baseball bat...

She charged at him, intent on getting that gun out of his hands and maybe pummelling him within an inch of his life in the process – she had the element of surprise on her side, he would never see it coming. But Nobody No-One had already flicked his wrist at her, and instead of hitting him, she hit an invisible force that threw her backwards through the air and hit the wall with a hideous  _thump_.

She let out a yell of pain and shock, already trying to struggle back to her feet. Even through the blood rushing in her ears and the tears swimming in her eyes, she could still see and hear Nobody firing that threatened shot directly at the Canadian dignitary – and she knew that he was already dead.

"And then there was one!" Nobody said cheerfully, coming over to kneel casually in front of her. "I wonder – your pride wouldn't let you beg for anybody else's lives, but would you beg for your own?"

"So  _that's_ it," Ace spat, raising her head to meet his eyes. "You're gonna kill me. Was that what this was all about, from the very beginning?"

"Well, obviously I'd prefer not to." Nobody shrugged, leaning backwards, tilting slightly on one heel. Ace noticed he was wearing basketball sneakers – brand new red-and-white ones, looking like he had just taken them right off the shelves. "It wasn't my intention coming in here, but, you know. One thing led to another, and now here we are. Or rather, here  _you_ are, and you're about to die!"

The console was beeping wildly in patterns that didn't make any sense and beneath her, Ace could feel the TARDIS thrumming – a panicked, constant staccato of a pattern that she could only recall the timeship having done very few times before, and every single one of those times was when the Doctor had been critically injured in some way. Which  _really_ didn't bode well for her right now, although she kind of knew that already.

"Any last words, Dorothy?" Nobody asked, a sadistic sort of twinkle in his eyes. "Apologies? Wishes? Or maybe... you're going to  _plead for your life_?" His expression obtained a sort of unholy glee. "Oh, please  _do –_ I might even let you survive if you do that! Scout's honor! It's worth a try, right?"

Ace punched him. Or tried to, anyway – she got a nice, wide swing in, that would have broken his jaw at the very least if it had landed. But Nobody raised a hand and caught it easily, not breaking eye contact once. He grinned. "Aw, that was  _cute._  You should probably start begging now, though."

Shocked but not entirely surprised by this, Ace met his gaze evenly, and forced out the words from between her gritted teeth. "Fuck off," she said, ignoring the TARDIS, whose humming and beeping was very much resembling a warming. " _Nobody tells me what to do._ "

She had entirely expected him to just get  _on_ with it at that point – to shoot her; to murder her like he had done to all of those people. But that wasn't what happened. Instead, he dropped his hand suddenly, and the gun in it abruptly vanished, like it was never there in the first place.

And then he smiled.

"You know," he said, "that's exactly what I was hoping you'd say."

 _Thrum, thrum, beep-beep-beep._  The TARDIS was definitely panicking and now Ace was too. She had almost preferred it when the gun was in his hands, because looking down the barrel of a futuristic laser gun was infinitely more preferable than having to look into his eyes – those madness-darkened, awful cat-like eyes. And then there was that terrible feeling creeping over her – the feeling that she had just done something terribly, fatally wrong that she wasn't yet aware of.

"Dorothy," he said. "Won't you be a good girl and  _disappear back to my CORDIS for me?_ "

And then Ace was gone _._


	3. Chapter Two: Signs of Trouble

****Back in the bunker, the Doctor was worried _–_ the most so that Hex had ever seen him. After spending a solid five minutes trying and failing to get any sort of response back from Ace (whose last words to them had been that a man appeared inside the TARDIS and _killed five people_ ), he had begun scrolling at an inhuman rate through data with his lips drawn tightly together, expression getting darker and darker as he went through it. Hex (and that captain woman too; Claire, her name was) were both hovering awkwardly to the side, not quite sure what to say. This definitely seemed like the sort of thing he wouldn't want to interrupt.

Finally, the Doctor snatched up his walkie-talkie and clicked the talk button down. "Ace? Are you there?" He released the button, and only static poured out in response. That grim expression got grimmer, and then he went digging in his seemingly-endless pockets. (Hex had once seen him remove an entire living pot-plant from their depths, which he now considered the baseline that any street magician would have to meet in order to actually impress him.)

The Doctor came up with something that resembled a wrench, but with a lot more fiddly bits and also a screen attached to it, and beckoned Hex over hurriedly. "Thermospanner," he explained (but not much), handing it to him. "You'll need to open that panel in the TARDIS."

"In the-? Hang about, you're sending me in _there_?" Hex stared at him in open disbelief. "After a guy just, just appeared out of nowhere and killed all those people?"

"She said he shot them, not killed," the Doctor corrected, and then shook his head. "I would go myself, but I have a suspicion who our mysterious appearing friend is, and if it's who I think, I will be _far_ more use here than in the TARDIS."

"But-" Hex began to protest half-heartedly, but the Doctor cut him off, swinging around in his swivel chair to face him properly.

"You are a _nurse,_ are you not?" he demanded, and at Hex's slight indication of assent, "five people, at the very least, have been _shot._ And that's not to mention Ace, who could be hurt, or worse. Do your duty, Staff Nurse Schofield."

Hex nodded – it hadn't taken much to convince him anyway, especially not with the words 'Ace' and 'hurt' in the same sentence – but he had one more thing to add. "What about the man?"

"We have to hope that he's lost interest in the TARDIS by now – whoever he is. For both your sake and everyone else's," the Doctor said. "But even if he's still there – if we don't do something soon, far more people will be hurt." And then his expression softened slightly from the dark storminess that he had been exuding up until now. "Hex – do be careful."

Hex, unused to the Doctor exhibiting any sort of Emotion™ towards him, ever, was completely thrown by this – Ace was usually the one on the receiving end of the heartfelt speeches and affectionate nose taps.

"'Careful' is just about the one thing you _can_ count on me being," he said, trying for flippancy, and not adding the bit about the other two things you could frequently count on him being – 'far too late to do anything of use' and 'terrified', respectively.

"I'm serious." The Doctor, indeed, looked deadly serious. Maybe a bit anxious too, but if he was, he was hiding it well. "At the first sign of any trouble, _run._ Bring Ace with you if you can, but your own safety is priority."

"I –" Oh god, no more flippant remarks left – and that was more Ace's territory than his, anyway. What do you do when a centuries-old alien is apparently a lot more concerned about your wellbeing than you thought he was? "– yeah. I'll. I'll do that."

"Good." The Doctor eyed him once more, and then nodded. "Quickly, then – _go._ "

Hex went.

The corridor where they had parked the TARDIS was only a short distance away, but when Hex arrived, it was jam-packed with the delegates that they had originally sent off with Ace for safety. And there were more than a few that were missing – the numbers had drastically diminished. They were all talking at once, too, looking terrified. He couldn't see Ace in the crowd, either.

"What happened?" he called as loud as he could, trying to attract their attention. "We heard there was a man in there. Is everybody all right?" He glanced sideways, saw a man whose elegantly tailored coat was speckled in blood, and his mouth twisted a bit without him consciously thinking about it. Stupid question, then. "Have any of you seen Ace – my friend, Ace? Short, brown hair, she was the one leading all of you into the Doctor's – into our safe-room? Have –"

"She got us out after he started shooting," a young Australian woman said, eyes wide. "S-some of us, they didn't make it, but-"

Hex started moving towards the TARDIS before she had even finished speaking, ignoring all previous instincts to Stay As Far Away As Possible From Situations That Could Potentially Lead To Painful Death. He had to fight his way through the crowd to get to those blue doors, although once they worked out what he was trying to do, they moved back to let him through.

The first time he tugged on the doors of the TARDIS, they just wouldn't open – sticking fast; not quite like they had been locked, but as if they were being held by a physical force. And then he tried again, and they swung open easily. He directly a quick warning towards everybody else to _stay put and stick together,_ and then practically fell into the TARDIS, slamming the door behind him. And then his breath caught and his eyes widened.

The scene inside the TARDIS was that of a complete bloodbath – there were bodies thrown left and right, seven of them that he could see from where he was, all expressing various states of horror and terror on their faces. The one thing that they all had in common – circular holes, burnt through some vital organ.

"Oh my god!" he couldn't help saying aloud. The TARDIS seemed to agree with him – the lights on its console were flashing erratically, without any real pattern to them, and there was a faint noise from deep within its corridors that seemed to indicate some sort of alarm going off.

On the console, he noticed the walkie-talkie that Ace had brought with her, still switched on and emitting static. He picked it up, and pressed the talk button down. "Doctor?"

 _"Yes, I'm here. What's going on?"_ The response was so instantaneous that Hex could easily imagine the Doctor having waited anxiously for any sign of communications from his own walkie-talkie.

"I got to the TARDIS," he said, taking a step back towards the doors. Usually the TARDIS, especially the console room, felt warm and homely, but at the moment he couldn't picture a place he would want to be in _less_ right now. "There's – Ace evacuated most of the occupants outside, apparently, but..."

_"What is it, Hex?"_

"They're dead," Hex whispered, staring around the console room. There was blood splattered on the floor and on the walls and he knew that if he walked around the other side of the console there would be _more_ bodies that he hadn't seen yet, and just. This was really. Super bad. He had already chalked the situation up high on his extensive mental list of 'Worst Adventures', and it wasn't even _over_ yet. "Whoever that guy was, he _really_ went to town in here. There – there's bodies everywhere, Doctor, I – I just... _how?_ " His voice cracked slightly. "I don't _understand,_ how did he get in here? Why would he-?"

 _"Mister Hex."_ The Doctor's voice was sharp and urgent, cutting through Hex's panic. Although to be perfectly honest, it sounded as if he was doing some panicking of his own. _"Ace. Have you seen Ace?"_

"Have I-? – oh _god._ " Upon seeing the bodies and blood, the reason he had been sent to the TARDIS into the first place – to check if Ace was okay – had completely vanished from his mind. Clutching the walkie-talkie in one hand, he pushed off from where he had been steadying himself at the wall of the TARDIS, and stumbled to the other side of the console. "Oh no, oh no –" Feverishly, he scanned the bodies. Shot to the head, shot to the heart, shot to the head _and_ heart – but all of them ambassadors, and none of them with braided hair or the red leather jacket that she had been wearing when they had first arrived. He thumbed the talk button again. "It's all right, thank _god –_ she's not one of them."

 _"That's all well and good, but_ where is she _?"_

"I... I don't know." Hex spun, turning towards the doorway leading to the rest of the TARDIS. "McShane!" he yelled, raising his voice so it echoed down the hallways. "Ace! Are you there?"

There was no response at all, but the TARDIS console flashed white to get his attention, and then began blinking furious, angry red. Hex was thinking that meant 'no', but he wasn't really sure. The TARDIS didn’t really tend to communicate in such a direct manner.

Walkie-talkie again, right. He held down the button, and said, "nobody's here. It's like she's just _disappeared._ "

The Doctor hummed in the introspective sort of way he tended to do when he was distracted. _"That doesn't make any sense,"_ he muttered indistinctly, apparently talking to himself, _"but it's not as if-"_ and here he broke off abruptly, and then said, very softly but very clearly indeed, _"oh no."_ Then, louder, _"Hex, what did you just say?"_

Hex blinked, confused. "I said, 'it's like she just disappeared', I think?"

 _"No, no, no, not_ that. _"_ Hex could easily picture the Doctor doing that annoyed, dismissive hand flap he did whenever somebody completely missed the point. _"Before that. What did you say before that?”_

Hex frowned, trying to remember five seconds ago. It was harder than one might think to do so. "...'no-one's here'?" He was still facing the door into the rest of the TARDIS, and raised an eyebrow in confusion at nowhere in particular.

A sharp intake of breath from the Doctor. _"Hex, get out of there. Now!"_

Hex didn't even bother to ask questions, not with that tone of voice. He went straight for the door, and his anxiety increased about tenfold when he realized that the door wasn't opening. "It's _locked._ "

_"The TARDIS? From the inside? That's-"_

"Not good?" Hex grimaced. "Yeah, I'm sorta getting that impression. Isn't there some sort of button I can press?"

 _"Yes,"_ said the Doctor. _"It's round, yellow-ish – you should've seen us use it before."_

"Right – right, okay, got it." Hex swivelled around to the TARDIS console, and stopped short.

There was a man sitting on the edge of it, swinging his legs back and forth, and licking an oversized, multicolored lollipop. His comically long, equally multicolored scarf was trailing off towards the ground, and he was eyeing Hex with the sort of delight that one usually reserves for the lunch that they have been waiting to eat all day. "Leaving so soon?" he asked.

"Oh my god!" Hex exclaimed. (It wasn't even a conscious decision at this point. Maybe he should have started getting used to this sort of thing by now; started rolling with the punches. But somehow everything just kept on surprising him.) "You're – you're that guy! The one who shot all these people!"

"Did I?" The man twirled his lollipop once, twice, three times, and on the fourth revolution around it was gone, having vanished into thin air. " _Nahh,_ can't have been. That doesn't sound like me at all! Although, now that you mention it... I did have this gun, earlier!" Just as quickly as the lollipop had vanished, there was now a futuristic looking laser device in his hands. "I'm really quite clumsy, you know. Maybe it just... went off by accident?"

His finger twitched on the trigger, and Hex had to duck to narrowly avoid losing part of his earlobe in the blast of energy that flew past him.

He tugged on the doors again, but to no avail, and then realized that the walkie-talkie was still in his hands, and still switched on. "Doctor! The guy from before! He's here and he's trying to kill me!" Another blast of laserfire nearly caught him in the shoulder, but he dodged – it was easier this time, almost like the man wasn't really trying.

" _Get out of the TARDIS!_ " the Doctor replied instantly with that kind of high-pitched undertone to his voice that he tended to acquire when under stress. " _He shouldn't be able to do anything once you're outside!_ "

"I told you, he's locked the doors somehow!" Hex replied, and then had to evacuate his position by the door rather hurriedly as the man leapt nimbly off the console and started advancing on him.

"Kids these days, always talking on their phones," the man said, tutting sadly. "I'm gonna have to confiscate that, y'know."

More laser fire, and this time he didn't quite manage to dodge quickly enough. His left hand was searing with pain now, white-hot, like his nerves were on fire. He nearly bit his own tongue, and almost dropped the walkie-talkie, but managed to catch it with the other hand, accidentally holding down the talk button in the process. " _Ow! –_ oh my god, fuck, ow, ow, _ow –_ "

" _Hex!_ " the Doctor exclaimed, sounding horrified, but Hex was already diving through the door leading to the rest of the timeship and there was no time to respond to the Time Lord's frantic questions. He started running as fast as he could, choosing directions and pathways at random. It seemed like the TARDIS was helping him somewhat – the hallways didn't look like they did usually. There were a lot more branching paths and unmarked doors, making it all too easy to get lost in. Or hide in, as the case might have been.

Despite this, however, Hex could still hear the man's footsteps, clear as anything. It sounded like he was strolling through the corridors of the TARDIS at an exceedingly leisurely pace, and to top matters off, he was _whistling. Springtime for Hitler,_ no less. It didn't seem to matter how fast Hex pushed himself, the sound of the man stalking him was always uncomfortably close behind.

Finally, Hex chose a door from the many that he was passing completely at random, and opened it, throwing himself inside. He listened at the door for a moment, but he couldn't hear the man anymore.

Satisfied that he was safe for the moment, he glanced around the room. It was a library, but not like the main TARDIS library, the one with lemon trees growing in-between the shelves and forgotten cups of tea and portraits of people he didn’t recognise hanging on the walls. This one was smaller, brighter and seemed to contain primarily thousands of volumes of the same brand of encyclopaedia. And there were more than a few doors leading out – a bonus, just in case he needed to escape.

"I'm fine," he gasped into the walkie-talkie, leaning against a shelf. "Well – not _fine,_ but I'm not dead." His hand was _really_ hurting now, and he examined it with a grimace as he kept talking. "The guy – he shot me, shot my hand with this – laser thing? And it's –" Injured. Second degree burns, probably, it was already starting to swell. " – well, it's not _good_ , either, but I'll survive. I ran into the corridors, and I'm in a library now, and might have lost him, but he's _following_ me, and he's definitely not human and oh my god I'm gonna die."

He had to pause to take a few deep breaths here, although it was really more like hyperventilation.

" _You are not,_ " said the Doctor, rather firmly, " _going to die._ "

"But I –" Hex stopped for a second – had he heard somebody outside? Or was that just his imagination playing tricks on him? He continued again, but this time in a softer tone. "Doctor, who _is_ this guy?"

" _His name is Nobody No-One,_ " said the Doctor, speaking in a measured yet rather urgent tone of voice. " _He's a Word Lord, a kind of... well, an alternate universe counterpart to my species. His universe runs on a set of completely different principles to that of our own – but the long and short of it is that he can affect reality, but only under certain circumstances._ "

"He-? ...what _sort_ of circumstances?"

" _He gains power by hearing any phrases with the words 'Nobody' and 'No-One',”_ the Doctor said. _“Saying 'Nobody can turn off the sun' grants him the ability to turn on and off the sun at will, and if 'nobody knows where the treasure is hidden', he_ will _know. Instantly._ "

Hex's eyes widened. "Oh no. So...?"

" _So when I said that 'nobody could get into the TARDIS to hurt those people' earlier,_ " said the Doctor grimly, _"I rather think he took that as an explicit invitation to do_ exactly _that._ "


	4. Chapter Three: Nowhere Now

"Why didn't you mention this earlier?" Hex said incredulously after a beat of silence. "It's not as if it would have been, you know, _useful to us_ or anything!"

" _Because I had no idea about any of it until ten minutes ago!_ " the Doctor said. " _I only realized when Commander Spencer and I scanned the records for instances of his name –"_

Hex angrily thumbed the talk button again. "That's great and all, but how do we get _rid_ of him?"

 _"The plan I had devised rather relied on either you or Ace getting into that hatch in the console room that I welded shut, and flipping the switch inside,_ " said the Doctor. _"From there, everything should resolve itself. I'm coming over now. Just stay put."_ And indeed, the sound of him moving along the corridors of the base could now be heard through the low quality of the walkie-talkie – hurried footsteps.

"The door's locked; you won't be able to get in," Hex said.

" _Don't be ridiculous, this is my TARDIS we're talking about. Of course she'll let me in._ "

"Yeah, but – this Nobody guy, he's done... something to it, it's like – well, I don't know _,_ but I don't think you'll be able to if he doesn't want it to happen!" He crossed to one of the other doors, and listened at it for a second. There was no sound outside, only the faint thrum of the TARDIS vibrating anxiously. "I'll get to the switch. I just use the thermospanner, right?"

" _That's correct, but –_ "

"I'll just pop out and flick it then," Hex said, with a confidence he really wasn't feeling. "No sweat, yeah? The TARDIS will keep me safe. Hopefully," he added, mostly to himself. He pushed the door open, and looked from side to side – the corridors were empty. "See, everything's fine. Nobody's out here."

Which was probably a really terrible thing to say, considering the circumstances.

"Boo," whispered the person who was suddenly and inexplicably directly behind him, directly in Hex's ear. Hex, much to his own shame, _screamed_ in terror – if Ace had been there to comment, she would have laughed and remarked on the congruence of his own scream and that of a six-year-old girl's, so it probably was a good thing that she wasn’t. The walkie-talkie in his hand clattered to the floor, skittering across to rest at the other side of the hallway.

"Wow," said Nobody No-One, crouching at a ninety-degree angle against the TARDIS wall with a razor-toothed grin that was practically threatening to burst out from his mouth. "That was a _lot_ more fun than I thought it was going to be."

His scarf, for some physics-and-gravity-defying reason, was not dangling down to the floor – it fell sideways to where his feet were contacting the wall and was coiled neatly there.

"Y – you," Hex said, an unwanted stutter finding its way into his voice, "how'd you even find me?"

Nobody rolled his eyes, and somersaulted off from his unlikely standing position to land neatly on the ground, right-way up. "You practically _summoned_ me, idiot. Didn't your mother ever tell you to watch your language?"

Hex bit back the instinctive response – _my mother's dead, you creep –_ and instead scanned his memory of the past few seconds. After a moment, he realized that yes, he had indeed said 'nobody's there' upon leaving the library. _Wow, you really messed that one up, Schofield_. "Fuck."

"'Fuck' sounds about right," Nobody agreed, and then he was holding the gun again, levelling it directly at Hex. "Now, don't get any clever thoughts about running off to the console room – remember, I'm the one with the gun, and I don't think either of us wants you winding up dead."

"I don't know, you were having a pretty good go at it before!" Hex said incredulously.

"What, _that?_ " Nobody flapped a dismissive hand in Hex's direction. "Pft, that was just us getting to know each other!"

The walkie-talkie on the floor crackled into life, although it was facing downwards and slightly muffled. " _I'm at the doors, Mister Hex; I'm coming in. Don't go anywhere. Don't –_ "

Nobody lazily fired a blast off at the device, and it emitted sparks and a faint puff of smoke before it fizzled and died. "He's _super_ annoying, you know that? And knowing him, he'll probably actually manage to get in soon-ish, which means I'm gonna have to speed this up."

Hex clutched the thermospanner tightly in a fist, wondering if it was the sort of thing he could use as a weapon.

"No, _no,_ " Nobody said after a moment, clearly annoyed. "You're not saying anything. You were _supposed_ to say something like 'speed what up?' And then I would have told you, 'well, I made this into a bit of a game with your pal Dorothy, and she ended up _losing_ even though there was no definite way for her to actually win', and then you would have presumably said something along the lines of ' _what?'_ or maybe even ' _oh my god'_ and _then,_ " he paused for a second to take an exaggeratedly deep breath, "I would have _explained_ to you that because of something your friend the Doctor said earlier, I could have just snatched her out from the TARDIS without having to even speak to her at all!"

"Ace's okay?" Hex blurted. "You didn't kill her?"

"Oh, so _that's_ what you choose to fixate on. Is this another one of those weird human emotions? Friendship, isn't it?" Nobody rolled his eyes. "No, I _didn't_ kill her, and I'm not going to kill you either. Not yet, anyway. I need to check the bounty on you people again – sometimes targets are worth more dead than alive, y'know."

"I – _bounty?_ " Stall for time, stall for time – the Doctor said he was coming, but would he be able to do anything once he actually got inside? "You're a _bounty hunter?_ "

"Uh, yes?" Nobody's eye raised much higher than it should have been possible to do, and then something seemed to occur to him. "Oh – hang on, are you trying to _distract_ me?"

 _Oh god he's onto me change the subject._ "What do you _mean_ you could have snatched us because of – whatever the Doctor said?"

Nobody eyed him suspiciously. "Oh, you're _definitely_ trying to distract me. Waiting for the Doctor to show up, is that it?"

"N – I just, I don't understand anything that's going on!"

"That sounds about right, from what I know about you," Nobody agreed. His teeth re-emerged again, sharp as razors. "You know, I _love_ vague statements. Have you heard of a thing called 'Death of the Author'?"

Hex had, sort of, but that knowledge was really imprecise and he didn't see what it had anything to do with their current situation.

"Some sort of concept from this dimension," Nobody said, leaning casually in an impossible direction for apparently no actual reason. "Something something else, basic gist of it is: interpretations are _just as,_ if not even more important, than the intention behind the statement. And, well," and here the gun went away, just disappearing like it had never been here, like Nobody had no more use for it, "the Doctor's exact words in that lab back there were 'no-one is going to separate us' – and gosh, that's rather nicely vague, isn't it?"

Hex's heart was pounding in his chest. "Wait –" he said, rather feebly.

"Which means," continued Nobody, "I can just..." And he flicked a hand into the air with a flourish, just as the sound of the Doctor, dashing down the hallway, could be heard from where they were.

" _Hex!_ " the Doctor bellowed, from simultaneously very close and far too far away, but again – it was already too late.

The thermospanner that Hex had been carrying clattered to the ground, and he was gone.

And Nobody was laughing like he'd never stop.

The Doctor, as was becoming depressingly frequent as the years went by, arrived seconds too late to be of any use, and exactly on time to arrive face-to-face with imminent peril.

" _You,_ " he snarled – his face twisting in anger upon seeing Nobody in the corridor, still laughing fit to burst – and the thermospanner and walkie-talkie that Hex had been carrying, both lying, discarded, on the ground.

Nobody pulled his laughter back under control, with some visible effort. " _Me,_ " he agreed, matching the Doctor's disdainful tone for that word. "Oh, I _wondered_ when you'd be showing up! It's really not a party until the Time Lord arrives, am I right?"

"What did you do?" The Doctor was not amused in the slightest, and oh, did it _show_ . "What did you _do_ with them?"

"Oh, that's lovely." Nobody crossed his arms, somewhat petulantly. "Not even a ' _hello, Nobody!'_ ' _Wasn't it silly of me to slip up like that and let you kidnap my pets, Nobody! But fair is fair, I guess – you can keep them! And by the way, I_ love _your scarf! Wherever did you find that?_ '" He tugged pointedly at the lengthy scarf he was wearing. "Not one person has commented on it today, and I've got to say, I'm disappointed. It's new, you know."

"They are my _friends,_ not pets, you have _never once_ played fair, that scarf belongs to _me_ ," the Doctor spat at him, "and I very much suspect that the reason your fashion sense has not been commented on is because a), it's _atrocious_ and b), people don't tend to want to _complement_ the person who is currently shooting at them – much less if they end up _dead_ at the conclusion of the conversation!”

"It belongs to you?" Nobody said, examining the knitted fabric. "Huh, no wonder I found it lying around in that wardrobe of yours. That explains a _lot._ "

The Doctor ground his teeth together angrily. "What do you want from me? Why go to all the trouble of killing that innocent man – assuming that was you, anyway."

"Well, of _course_ it was me," Nobody said, flashing a smile that would have been brilliant if it wasn't so horrifying, "after all – 'nobody could get in or out of that room without anybody seeing'. Did you see what I did there?”

"And I suppose it was all just a plot to lure me here," said the Doctor, disgusted. "A _trap_. Was that it?"

"Well, not just you – those delightful friends of yours as well," Nobody said. "But yep. Basically." He wiggled his fingers in the air. "Surprise! Although," he added, leaning back against a wall, "I did _not_ expect you to make it so easy for me! Saying something like 'no-one's going to separate us'? _Completely_ out of left field. Did _not_ see that coming." He laughed aloud, a short bark of incredulity. "Actual genius. I couldn't have planned it better myself. I'm telling you, whatever I get paid for this job, it will never be worth as much as that one moment when I realized what _you had just done!_ Priceless!"

"To be clear," the Doctor said, after a very long, pregnant pause. "You orchestrated the brutal murder of an innocent man, killed all of the people that thought they would be safe in here in cold blood, invaded my home and abducted my friends – for _money?_ "

"There’s a surprisingly large bounty on all of your heads," Nobody said, shrugging, "from a surprisingly large variety of people. The prices are fluctuating all the time, but it is _large._ So I figured, why not have a day off to bait a Time Lord? It's practically a holiday compared to everything else I do! And I get a massive sum of money while I'm at it - good, eh?"

"If by _good_ you mean 'completely immoral and wholeheartedly deserving of my utmost eternal _disgust_ ' – " the Doctor was rolling his _r_ s like bowling balls, popping the plosives of his every syllable, putting every bit of his formidable Scottish accent to work, " – then, _yes,_ it is ' _good'_."

"Well, I'm glad I live up to your rather stringent standards, Doctor," Nobody said, smirking. "But what do you intend to do now?"

"Well, I don't know," the Doctor said. "Aren't you planning to take me as well, as you did to Ace and Master Hex?"

"Hopeful, are you?" Nobody raised an eyebrow.

"Impatient, maybe. If you're planning to complete the set – take all three of us – I'd prefer you just get on with it."

"Ah, okay, see – here's the thing. Remember that thing you said earlier?" Nobody was playing with his scarf, flipping it back and forth between his fingers and between dimensions. "'Nobody can separate us', or whatever – I've forgotten already. Point is, I _technically_ can't take you with me, because then that wouldn't count as separating the three of you, and – bad stuff would happen, probably? My CORDIS might unravel, possibly, and there would be consequences, _definitely_ , so, like – best not to risk it, hm?" The scarf dropped from his hands, and now it was a negative image of itself, with black where white should be and purple replacing green. "It was a hard choice, let me tell you. I could take one or two of you, but not all three! And since you showed up last, well," a shrug, "guess you're not today's lucky winner, huh?"

"So that's it?" The Doctor's expression hardened. "You're just going to leave with my friends, and go off to do Rassilon-knows-what with them? And you expect me to just sit back and watch that happen?"

Nobody looked surprised – vaguely, at least – for a second, and then he laughed again. "What? _Nah._ I'm going to leave with your friends, go and sell them to the highest bidder, and _then,_ " he made jazz hands in a manner that indicated he was doing it absolutely unironically, _"afterward,_ I'm gonna come back to get you, too, and you'll go the same way! Except, preferably for a higher price."

"You're never going to get hold of me," said the Doctor, with utmost certainty in his voice. "And I will get my friends back from you, Nobody No-One. I will make _sure_ of that."

Nobody winked, and he flickered once. "We'll see about that!" he said, cheerful and bright. "But, well. Two of three's not bad!"

And then the lights of the TARDIS flickered out for precisely four-point-five seconds, and when they came on again, Nobody was right next to the Doctor, hands on his shoulders and head right next to his ear.

"See you later, Doc," he whispered, eyes glinting, and then in slightly less than half a second, he was _gone._ The Doctor looked around wildly, but there were four and a half buttons on his coat (the fifth one was starting to fall off), and he was standing next to the door marked 'forty five', and it was completely obvious by that point that Nobody No-One had vanished, and properly this time – taking Ace and Hex with him.

The Doctor, alone now, and without witness, let out a sudden shout of wordless anger, and slammed his hand down hard against the nearest wall before sinking down to sit on the ground. And if you had looked closely at him at that very moment, you would have seen that he was shaking.

The TARDIS was still humming in distress, although it wasn't as intense as before. The Cloister Bell had stopped ringing shortly after the Doctor had entered her walls, but there were still alarms blaring and lights flashing from the console room, which was only just around the corner.

After a second, the Doctor reached a hand up to the wall of the TARDIS – moving gently this time, but there was still a noticeable tremor to the action. "I'm sorry," he murmured, pressing his fingers flat against the surface, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to – I was – I lost my temper. Forgive me?"

The vibrations increased for a moment, and then settled down into an even, pleasant sort of hum, as if the timeship were telling him; _don't be silly, there's nothing to forgive._

"Thank you," the Doctor said softly. He shut his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, there was a grim sort of determination in his eyes. He pulled himself off the ground, to his feet, and after briefly touching the wall of the TARDIS once more, headed directly for the console room.

The bodies, littered from wall to wall, well, they gave him pause for a second or two – he had passed them briefly on the way in, but he had been occupied with more urgent matters at that point. After a few moments of silent contemplation, he got to work – solemnly moving them from their positions of death to a more respectful, dignified repose. He rearranged clothes, neatly covering up burn marks and holes where possible, and gently closed the eyes of each and every one of them.

He went out, reassured the soldiers and delegates that everything was safe now – that the murderer had been taken care of, in a manner of speaking (this was a lie, it always came down to the lies) and they seemed to believe it. He requested the help of some of them to remove the bodies from the console room, and left them to take care of it.

He found Commander Spencer – no, _Claire,_ he found Claire – back where he'd left her, in the control center, and explained the situation to her in the most succinct terms possible. She nodded along, made a note or two as she did, and then told him that she'd take care of the cleanup.

"Thank you very much, Claire," he told her.

She waved him off. "You've saved this planet enough times, Doctor. The least I can do is..." And she trailed off, and eyed him with a sharp look in her eyes. "Your companions."

"Friends," corrected the Doctor, eyeing her back. There was something...

"He took them," she said.

"He did." She didn't feel quite right, time-wise, although he could tell that it wasn't her fault. Something had happened today, something that had made her ever so slightly paradoxical; not fatally so, but enough to put him on edge. Perhaps something should have happened to her today, but didn't. He wondered if it was his fault. "And I intend to get them back."

"Then go," she said, and waved him off again, but this time to the door. "You'll see me again, I suspect, but this is far more important – I can tell."

He didn't hesitate; just left without looking back. He headed down the corridors, brushing off anybody who moved to stop or confront him with a piercing look or a dismissive shrug. The soldiers had finished removing the bodies. There were weeping people in the hallways, blood staining the floor, but he ignored it all.

He entered the TARDIS, shut and locked the door (not that it would do him any good now that Nobody No-One could enter it) and stood at the console for a moment or two. The TARDIS was still humming infrequent notes of discomfort every few minutes, but for the most part his timeship was silent. There were no footsteps in the corridors – no faint explosions from the chem lab; no gleeful laughter and occasional shrieks following them. No shouts of ‘hey, Professor!’ in varying tones of delight and exasperation or distant yells of 'oh my god' from unlikely rooms in far-off corridors.

It was so very quiet now.

He didn't like it in the least.

After a moment, he hit a lever, and sent the TARDIS whirling into the Vortex, and as soon as he knew that there was no need for him to be there anymore, he backed away and found an armchair at the edge of the console room. He all but collapsed into it, resting his umbrella across his lap, and then he closed his eyes.

And the Doctor sat, and the Doctor thought and planned and schemed, and he didn't move for a very long time.


	5. Chapter Four: Your Will Devoured

Elsewhere and elsewhen and a lot of other _elses_ besides, Ace McShane was roughly and inelegantly spun back into existence. She stumbled upon being re-realized as a three-dimensional creature, and nearly tripped over her own feet trying to stay upright, but she quickly regained her balance.

Her heart was still thumping from the events of less than a second ago, and she was immensely confused – she had been in the TARDIS, facing off against that lunatic with the gun, and then – he had done something? And now she was _here,_ wherever here was, and –

The place that she was now existing in was large (or possibly infinite, it was hard to tell), and, put plainly, it was just _wrong._ Its geometry and architecture seemed impossible, even though there was practically none of either of those things. When she looked around, she saw only flat, unchanging whiteness – no floors, no walls, no ceiling – as if she was standing on a massive, blank sheet of paper, but there was also clearly some sort of substance to it at the same time. Her feet were in solid contact with the ground, there was some form of gravity at work that felt remarkably similar to Earth-gravity, and she sort of just knew without really knowing that if she tried to move in the space, she would encounter some sort of barrier eventually – maybe not walls, but the equivalent.

The place wasn't silent, either. Ace tilted her head and listened hard, and –

Well, no. Whatever noise this place was making couldn't really be called a 'noise'. Instead of _hearing_ whatever it was, she was... experiencing it? The closest similar thing she could think of was the sound of the TARDIS engines humming; that background noise you could hear wherever in the timeship you went. Except instead of hearing a repetitive, thrumming hum, Ace was feeling a constant, thrumming awareness – every second or so, she noticed something different that fit the number _forty-five,_ or some derivation of that number. There were forty-five stitches on the seam of her shirt. She had been in this place for four-and-a-half minutes and counting. She had breathed in and out forty-five times since she last realized she was doing so. And the regular intervals of these realizations were approximately four-point-five seconds apart. It was unnerving, to say the least – she was sure that the number hadn't been so commonly occurring before now.

She glared at nothing, furious with how much of a headache this place was giving her, before turning her gaze upwards (probably) and yelling at her best guess of where the ceiling was, " _oi!_ Nobody No-One, you _fucker._ Get in here and talk to me face-to-face, _coward!_ "

There was silence – not even echoing, ringing silence, just her words falling flat and dead in the empty space around her. There was a moment or so where she began to second-guess herself, wonder if she was right about the Word Lord having taken her to... well, wherever.

Of course, it took precisely forty-five seconds for something to happen.

There was a pop – or sort of, it was more like reality rewriting itself, and then she heard the faint sound of somebody chuckling lowly nearby. She spun on her heel, a neat three-hundred-sixty spin, but there was no change in the surroundings. Still only whiteness. "I know you're there," she called, narrowing her eyes. "Stop hiding _,_ or – or, whatever, just _show_ yourself!"

" _Still_ angry?" asked a voice right behind her, and Ace whirled around to find herself face-to-face with Nobody No-One – or sort of face-to-face, anyway. He was crouching upside-down, apparently on nothing at all, or maybe some sort of ceiling that was invisible to her, and his scarf was trailing upwards into infinity, defying any semblance of gravity. He was positioned at exactly the right height so that his head was at the same level as hers was, and he grinned at her in sadistic delight. "That's impressive, that is! I figured you'd have simmered down by now, but _no,_ you're still just as furious as before."

Ace didn't even miss a beat. She went directly for his neck, lunging forwards with a sharp exhale of air. She got within inches of him, millimetres, even, but just as she was about to make contact, he disappeared – just vanished into thin, white air, and she overbalanced and went crashing to the ground – although it wasn't painful, just more than a little humiliating.

A split second passed – wherein Ace pushed herself to her feet once more, scowling furiously – and then Nobody popped up into existence some distance away, this time standing at a strange angle forty-five degrees crooked to Ace's version of the ground. "Not only feisty, but predictable as well," he sighed, as jovial as before. "How very _typical_ of you."

"Where are we?" Ace said, glaring daggers at him. "What did you do? What do you _want?_ "

"You know, it's been _ridiculously_ hard to get a decent price for you," Nobody said, ignoring her questions. "You'd have thought that the girl that singlehandedly took down a fully-armed Dalek when she was sixteen would fetch higher on the universal market, but buyers are so _picky_ these days."

It took a second, maybe two, for her to work through the adrenaline and confusion and fury and actually process what he was saying. "You-? You're _selling me?_ "

"Well, yeah. Or trying to, anyway." He leered at her. "What did you think I was gonna do with you? Keep you here forever, torture you until you _talked?_ "

"You seem a bit too sophisticated to revert to torture," Ace said, "but yeah _,_ I did, something like that. What sort of devices do you have in this ship of yours? A brain-bender? The mind probe?"

"What?" said Nobody. "No, not the mind probe. Or anything like that. No thank _you._ Humans are so messy to clean up after, psychically or otherwise, and there's nothing you know that I want to have."

"Selling us to who?" Ace's eyes were narrowed.

"Oh, not anybody in particular. Whoever!" Nobody winked at her. "The Daleks were the most vocal about you in particular, but there's all sorts – the psychics behind creating the Fearmonger wanted a piece of the pie, and that's not even _mentioning_ the Silurians, the Sontarans – "

"They all want _me?_ " For a moment, Ace was frozen in place – the enemies she made while travelling with the Doctor never really seemed that threatening once they were in the TARDIS once more and moving away to another time and place. It had never once occurred to her that they would somehow catch up with her one day.

"Yeah, _no._ That's the thing." Nobody was frowning, now. "Turns out that you and the Doc, you're kind of a package deal, according to – well, pretty much everyone _._ "

"You – what?"

"You, the Doctor, and sometimes that other little friend of yours, too," Nobody said. "You know, the one that follows you around, a bit like a puppy? What's his name, what's his name _–_ oh yeah, Hex _._ What a _weird_ name."

"What did you do to them? Hex and the Doctor?" she asked, furious.

"The Doctor?" Nobody tilted his head, then vanished and didn't reappear. She could still hear his voice, though, echoing all around them. "I didn't manage to get him, in all honesty. There's all these laws about words and meaning, and – well, long story short, I'm gonna go and grab him later, after you're taken care of. Now _that'll_ be fun! He'll put up a wonderful struggle, I'm sure."

"Hex," said Ace from between gritted teeth. "What did you do with Hex?"

"Oh, _Hexxy._ " Nobody was now right behind her, breath tickling the back of her neck. "Yeah, he's here. Somewhere, probably." She saw him flap a dismissive hand nowhere in particular in her peripheral vision. "In stasis, like you were up 'til now. He was going to try to fight me with a spanner, I think – did you know that? No, probably not. It was rather endearing _,_ really, he was trying to find you – yelling your name all over the TARDIS; getting into an _awful_ panic."

"If you _hurt him – "_

"Oh, _relax._ I'm not as boring as you are." She hated hated _hated_ this. Everything about Nobody No-One made her feel sick and angry, and he was far too close to her for comfort. "Nah, the worst that Tommy's got ay-tee-em is a mild case of ' _being shot in the hand'_ . Nothing big _,_ you know?" And now his hands were on her shoulders and she froze, stiffening up.

"You shot him?" She didn't move a muscle, but her tension levels were running off the charts. "I swear to god – "

" _Boring!_ " Nobody yelled, rather loudly, "it's not like it's _serious,_ come _on,_ worst case scenario he won't be able to write neatly for a week or so – "

Ace wasn't listening.

 _Hex is hurt,_ went one part of her brain, which set off immediate alarm bells, and this was immediately followed by _it might be actually serious, there's no way of telling how honest this lunatic is being._ One fist clenched tight, almost painfully so. _Even if he's not hurt, he must be_ terrified _right now, wherever he was_ . _He's not used to this, not properly, not like we are._ Quicker, now: _Nobody's going to sell him, like me. Sell him to who?_ And now, angry: _Hex can't be sold, that can't happen. I won't let that happen._

And then, her thoughts sprung to the Doctor (of course) – and this time things were louder, more sharp in her mind. More urgent. _He's going after the Professor next. No, NO, NO. That's not going to happen, I can't let him anywhere near the Doctor, the Doctor can't get trapped here too, that CAN'T happen –_ and then finally, inevitable and loud and sharp and fierce –

_I've got to do something._

And as Nobody kept talking, kept threatening, kept laughing at her, something inside of her – something that she thought she had got rid of; buried a very long time ago – it began to stir. At first, she pushed it back instinctively, horrified that it was still there. It growled in response, bristling angrily at her, and it was about then that she realized what this meant. And she realized that it might not actually be as bad as she thought it might be.

And she took a deep, shuddering breath, and gave herself over to the cheetah completely.

"– and honestly, I could probably get a _decent_ price for all of you separately? But I feel like if I can get hold of the Doctor too, then, _well._ The Cybermen would _kill_ for the whole set. And I mean that literally, they would literally kill to get all three of you in the same place –" and Ace really wasn't Ace anymore, and she snarled and slammed her claws into his chest, ripping downwards and tearing that soft soft skin until the meat stopped talking and started screaming, and oh _scream_ he did, and wasn't that glorious? He didn't smell like a human but there was no doubt that he couldn't suffer like one, the strange little man-shaped thing.

This thing, this creature – it was Enemy. The Ace-creature was telling her that from somewhere very far away, and although she disliked how very _human_ that part of her was, she also knew that it was right and this Enemy must be taken down. She slashed, tore, ripping, and then spun away from him with a glorious howl, heart pounding from the thrill of the hunt as the air around him became suddenly charged with something _electric,_ and he screamed again, rippling the very air around him, making everything go blurry.

It didn't matter to her that he did not _bleed_ like a creature of flesh would – indeed, she couldn't hear the rushing of blood in his veins or smell anything other than something _wrong_ and _chemical_ leaking from him, because it didn't matter _how_ he bled, it just mattered that he did. She could always do something to him if he bled.

And inside, he wasn't red-pink-bone, he was leaking black, thick and viscous. It was dripping from the gashes that she had torn in his clothes and skin. It was falling to the floor, surrounding him in a deep puddle of ink as his figure warped, as he fractured and then put himself together again and fractured once more. His teeth eclipsed his face – went far too sharp far too big far too quickly – and then his colors went off and then he smelt of cinnamon briefly, and then the black stuff was dripping from his hairline, and he was doubled over, making an awful terrible keening noise.

She went for him again, knowing that he wouldn't survive another attack – and she would feast merrily on his flesh afterwards and it would be a _good hunt –_ but she hadn't even crossed half the distance before he jerked upwards to stare at her and – " ** _get away from me,_** " he roared, voice terrible and vast like a flood that you can't even hope to avoid. And suddenly, she was away from him, a long distance away from him, he was now barely a speck in the distance. Which didn't make sense, they were only words, after all, and words meant nothing to her.

She started running, of course, the ground blurring beneath her feet, but she wasn't fast enough to get to him before he spoke again – "don't even _move_ " – voice like acid, deadly serious – and she couldn't move. It was that simple. She howled and gnashed her teeth and fought savagely against the bonds, but only in her head, because each and every one of her limbs were locked firmly into place, and she couldn't even blink.

And the Enemy straightened up, slow as anything, panting heavily, with black ichor still trickling down his jaw. The wounds that she had inflicted were slowly vanishing, healing over impossibly, and she could see them going as he stalked towards her, each step measured and slow.

" _Well,_ " he said, eyes dark and cold, "this certainly is interesting, _isn't it._ "

A part of her that was still Ace might have shivered, gone cold and terrified all over, but all of her that wasn't (which was an awful lot) was still snarling and growling and thinking of all the ways that she could rip this ridiculous little not-human man to shreds once she was free.

"That sure was a vicious, unexpected attack," he said, stepping up to meet her, getting uncomfortably close – she could smell his lack of breath, lack of blood, and see nothingness in his terrible empty eyes, but she _still couldn't move_ . "What a shame," he said, voice barely a whisper, "that _nobody survived._ "

He circled her once, seemingly fascinated, and then leaned in close to stare her in the eyes. It was hard enough to breathe, so there wasn't anything that she could do to fight against the bonds. She merely glared at him with every ounce of fierce, predatory disdain that she could manage.

"Aw, aren't you cute," breathed the Enemy, running a hand along her jawline. "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty – oh, but you are a _savage_ one, aren't you," he added, drawing his hand back when she tried to bite his hand, but failed utterly. "I kinda want to play with you for a bit but – I've got things to see. Places to do."

Words, words, words, they meant nothing to her. Just rip and tear and bite and claw; no matter if the taste disappoints, it's the hunt that matters most. And this Enemy creature thing, whatever it was, it would be a good hunt – the best. She knew it deep inside herself, as surely as if she had been born with the information within her. And if only the Enemy-creature wasn't _cheating,_ wasn't playing so unfairly by the rules of the Hunt that even she could object, he would be dead on the ground already –

A hiss of ozone. A pop of static. The flash made her blink and snarl, but when she opened her eyes, he had disappeared, folded out of existence, and she couldn't taste his scent in the air anymore. And then she could move freely again, but of course it was too late for that to be of any use.

And only seconds after that, she was gone once more.


	6. Chapter Five: Lights On (Nobody's Home)

Thomas Hector Schofield was roughly and inelegantly spun back into existence a short, relative time later, and he didn't manage to steady himself as well as Ace had, in his situation. He staggered, and then his legs gave out and he ended up on the ground – blank and white and stretching forever.

"– and you're _worthless!_ " somebody was saying, somewhere to his right, rather angrily too. " _Completely_ worthless – not a single being wants a piece of you unless you're with those other two, and _that's_ not going to happen unless I can get a hold of the Doctor –"

Hex groaned, noted the headache and lack of any detail whatsoever in his surrounding environment, and muttered something indistinct to himself, before remembering the past few minutes and jerking upright. "You – wait _,_ where am-?"

"– and to be honest, I don't know why I didn't go for him _first_ ." Nobody No-One was there, of course, and he was quite literally pacing a groove into the ground – every step he took seemed to warp the ground beneath him just that little bit more. It sounded as if he had been ranting for quite a while, maybe even since before Hex showed up. He turned sharply on his heel, and a crack zig-zagged its way through the ground, shooting out in Hex's direction – he had to scramble back to avoid... well, something. "And he doesn't even like you enough that you can be used as leverage! You're not just _worthless,_ you're useless too!"

"Wait, _hang on,_ " Hex said, a bit annoyed by this in spite of everything.

Nobody spun around to face him, scarf flaring out behind him in a non-existent breeze. Hex noticed that the end of it was stained liberally with ink – which definitely hadn't been there before. "Are you saying that you _aren't_ useless, Tommy? What have you contributed to society, lately? Or _ever,_ for that matter?"

"I – I mean, I – " Hex wanted to say something, make a cutting remark that would prove how not-useless he was, which felt kind of ridiculous to be honest, considering who this guy was. Despite that, he kind of wished the Doctor was here to say something witty for him. Prove that he wasn't useless. Although, wasn't that only proving Nobody's point? "– look, what do you even want from me?"

"Nothing you can give," said Nobody, giving him a flippant sort of once-over. Hex felt remarkably like he was being x-rayed, and that the x-ray in question was about to be tossed away carelessly in the next few second, as if his wellbeing didn't matter in the slightest. "Honestly, I wasn't joking when I said you were useless. You – Hex Schofield – you are possibly the most inconsequential being I have ever met! And that's saying something – some of my cousins are adverbs, and it's hard to get more boring than _that._ "

As it turned out, yes, it _was_ possible to get incredibly annoyed towards a being that could probably destroy you in an instant with the right word choice. "Cheers, mate. Thanks a _lot._ "

Nobody waved a dismissive hand through the air. "Oh, don't take it so _personally,_ Tommy. I only meant inconsequential in terms of use to me right now. I'm sure you have a larger role in the general universe that you don't know about just yet. Ooh!" He tapped a finger to his chin. "Maybe your mother was secretly a vampire! Wouldn't _that_ be a plot twist?"

Hex's mouth opened and then shut again, and then he said, "look, if I'm really that boring _,_ why are you still here talking to me?"

Nobody shrugged, and did something impossible – the end result of which was that he was sitting cross-legged several feet off the ground with his neck tilted at a horrifying angle that indicated that his neck had been broken – although he didn't seem affected at all by it. "There's nobody – pun entirely intended! - else to talk to! Your friend's gone all catty on me and there's no reasoning with someone when they're like that, and I figured, since you're here –"

"My friend?" Hex interrupted, eyes widening. _He can't have the Doctor, since he's been complaining about the fact that the Doctor's_ not _here, and, well, she was gone when I got to the TARDIS, so –_ "Ace? Ace is here? Where is she?"

Nobody snorted in what sounded like disgust. "Oh, wow. You know, I might have thought you three coordinated those reactions if I didn't know for a fact that I had taken you completely by surprise. Are you always this _concerned_ about each other?"

"We–" _Are we? Or more importantly, maybe, am I?_ "-what did you do to her?"

"She did it to herself!" Nobody said immediately, almost defensive about it. "Or at least, I'm _guessing_ she did – I certainly didn't tell her to do it!"

This set off a large amount of alarm bells in Hex's head. " _What?_ You – where is she?"

"Around." Nobody flapped a hand nowhere in particular, utterly careless. "I haven't checked on her in a while, but – well, I'm _sure_ she's fine."

Hex wanted to press this, but sensed that he probably wouldn't get very far. He decided to change tactics. "Where _are_ we?"

"We're in my phraseship," said Nobody. "– didn't I mention that earlier? I could have sworn I mentioned that earlier. Ah, well – nevermind. It's called the CORDIS, it lets me do whatever the hell I want, _whenever_ the hell I want, and unless I let you out myself, you're going to be trapped in here forever." He grinned, seemingly pleased with himself. "Any questions?"

"Y – yeah. A _bunch,_ actually." Hex stared into the blank whiteness surrounding him. "Is it like the Doctor's TARDIS, then? But for... er, 'Word Lords', or whatever you lot are?"

"That's a really simplistic way of looking at it," said Nobody, "but if you really want to be _that_ boring, then yeah." He smirked. "Want to know how it works?"

"N - " As much as Hex hated to admit it, he did - know your enemy and all that. And if Nobody was freely volunteering information, then... "Yeah, actually. How _does_ it work?"

"I could tell you, but I'd _have to kill you,_ " he said, and Hex blinked. Immediately, Nobody had vanished from where he was and appeared inches away from him, so they were nose-to-nose. "No, seriously, I can't tell you that, you puny little human brain would ex- _plode._ " He grinned, his tongue poking out slightly, and flicked Hex's nose neatly - making him yelp. "Brain matter is _so_ messy to clean up. I think we want to avoid that." Another blink, and then Nobody was back where he had been before moving - crosslegged, mid-air. "But the Cliffnotes version, well, I could probably do that without too much spontaneous brain combustion. Whaddya say?"

"I - sure?" Hex said, unsure.

" _Molto bene!_ " Nobody cried, apparently delighted. He spun around twice, legs splayed out, as if he were sitting on a swivel chair rather than on thin air, and when he faced Hex properly again, he was wearing an old-fashioned mortarboard at a jaunty angle, and had a sort of rod in his hand. "Sit down, sit down!" he invited cheerfully.

Hex shot him a look of immense trepidation. "I... think I'll stand, thanks?"

Nobody's cheerful expression remained, but his eyes hardened. "Hey, did I ever mention the time when somebody said offhandedly 'no-one can turn a human being inside-out!' when I happened to be in the vicinity?"

Hex hurriedly took a seat on the ground. There were some threats that you just did not question.

"Excellent," said Nobody, and then thrust the stick into the air - it caught onto a loop of string that Hex could have swore blind wasn't there before. Nobody tugged downwards sharply, and a blackboard fell down from nowhere at all, filling the space right next to where Nobody was sitting at it. Written on it in neat white handwriting was the phrase 'WORD LORDS FOR MORONS'.

"Oh, that is just _charming,_ that is," Hex muttered.

"Much as a TARDIS allows a Time Lord to travel throughout space and time," Nobody began, adopting a rather patronizing, teacherly tone, "my CORDIS allows me to manipulate words and reality through the use of _language._ For example - well, let's go back to 'no-one can turn a human being inside out', since I thought that one was pretty good. If you say something worth making true with any part of my name in it, and I or my CORDIS are around to listen - I was there personally in that case, by the way - _bam!_ " He slammed his hand down in the air, creating a loud _bang_ for emphasis. "Instant reality! Doesn't matter how _improbable_ the phrase is, or how it would logically work, the CORDIS can make it happen!"

Hex's eyes narrowed very briefly - he had realized something _important_ here, but didn't exactly want to voice it aloud just yet.

"The CORDIS, by the way," Nobody added, leaning back, "it supplies me with everything I need to get stuff done. Especially when I'm inside it, but it works outside too. Things like - oh, just things. A gun." The same laser blaster he had been using before appeared in his hand, and he twirled it once. "An _actual_ gun." It was quickly replaced by an old-fashioned revolver. "A violin, a TV remote, an _assault rifle,_ " all of these things appeared in his grasp in quick succession, "a... hot tub." This time, nothing showed up, which was probably for the best. "You know! Useful things."

Hex had the beginnings of a plan in his head, but he needed more time. _Appeal to the guy's vanity. He has a huge ego, right?_ "So... _uh._ That's really cool. CORDIS, huh? What's that stand for?" He tried to work it out in his head. "Car... Or... Random Dimension In Space...?"

Nobody rolled his eyes - rolled his entire head around, in fact, like he was trying to convey his immense disappointment in this acronym in the most visual way possible. " _Nooo,_ no no no no _no -_ what does that even _mean?_ " He slammed his hand twice against the blackboard, and in a puff of white dust, the words 'WORD LORDS FOR MORONS' were gone and there was a piece of chalk in his hand. "What do they even teach you kids these days? _Ridiculous._ No, 'CORDIS' stands for 'Conveyance Of Repeated Dialogue In Spacetime'." He wrote the acronyms out as he said it, and underlined the words twice pointedly, glaring at Hex. "You got precisely _one_ of those words right, and it was the _two-letter noun._ I'm not some _Time Lord_ whose ship only stretches the one, _boring_ dimension. My ship is happily, _properly_ multi-dimensional, all forty-five of them."

"Forty- _five?_ " Hex tried to work out how a ship working in forty-five dimensions would even function _,_ and failed miserably. "But-"

"Uh-uh-uh, don't do that - brain combustion, remember?" Nobody said sharply, and Hex was beginning to suspect that these warnings maybe weren't just a metaphor, with how much his head was starting to hurt. He tapped his rod against the blackboard, against the underlined words. "Back to the point. The CORDIS - snappy little term, coined by my grandson, or something - it disguises itself in a way much more clever than the Doctor's burnt-out chameleon circuit, which, by the way, doesn't even work. I mean, a _police box?_ Really?" He shook his head, and then pointed towards the two words of the acronym. "Anyway, 'Repeated Dialogue'. CORDISes - CORDII, maybe? - they're powered by regular words and phrases throughout the multiverse- so they tend to disguise themselves as a word or phrase in their surroundings. That's how I slipped into the base, by the way."

"You disguise your ship... as a phrase?" Hex said slowly.

"Sure do. Wanna guess which one?" Nobody wiggled his eyebrows dramatically. "Come on, it's not that difficult."

" _Uh,_ um," Hex tried to think, and surprisingly, it didn't take him that long to work it out. " _Oh._ The joke that the guard was telling back outside the room."

"Bingo!" Nobody cheered. "You get a gold star! – or, well, you don't, not really. Unless you want one?" In his other hand, a large metal star-shaped object appeared. He tossed it from hand to hand.

"I'm good, thanks," Hex said. Nobody shrugged, in a _suit yourself_ sort of way, and then threw the star in his direction anyway. Hex ducked and it sailed cleanly over his head, and when it hit the ground behind him it exploded, rather loudly and messily.

"Whoops!" Nobody said cheerfully and completely unapologetically. "Sorry about that. Anyway. That is, more or less, my CORDIS! Any questions from the class?"

Hex took a deep breath in. His plan was more-or-less properly formed now, although he would have really rather preferred to work on it a bit more and maybe get the help of someone else – but that wasn't an option right now, and he had no idea if he'd have a chance to execute it later on. So. "Yeah, I kind of do. Uh – that thing with your name. It works with pretty much, you know, _anything_ , right?"

"Pretty much, you know, _anything,_ yeah," Nobody said, affecting a mocking version of Hex's accent.

"Right. So if I said something like, 'nobody can do a perfect backflip'...?"

Nobody rolled his eyes, but leapt down from his perch next to the blackboard and obliged – throwing himself up into the air and flipping over backward with the ease and grace of an Olympic gymnast. He stuck the landing perfectly, throwing his hands up into the air as if expecting applause - and Hex had to admit that it was one of the most impressive gymnastic feats he had seen in his life. "That's more like a party trick than anything else, Hexxy. If you're going to tell me that I'm able to do stuff, at least make it _interesting._ "

Another breath. _Don't panic. This is exactly the sort of thing that the Doctor pulls all the time, and it always works for him, right?_ "All right, then." He thought for a second about the phrasing of what he was going to say, and then decided that he had thought it over enough, and stood up, so he was facing the Word Lord directly.

"Nobody," he said, "is going to let Ace and I safely out of his CORDIS, without doing anything at all to harm us, not now and not _ever._ No-One will leave the Doctor and – and the rest of the universe, too – alone, and," something suddenly occurred to him, a flash of inspiration, "he's going to either stay in the CORDIS for the rest of time, or go back to whatever dimension he came from – whichever one of the two he wants. And Nobody won't try to find a way to get out of these conditions."

There was a moment of absolute, utterly deafening silence, in which Hex and Nobody stared at each other. An odd sort of expression crossed Nobody's face, something that Hex couldn't interpret.

 _Did it work? Did I actually just do that?_ Hex wondered, anxiety mounting second by second. What if he hadn't been specific enough - had left some kind of loophole in his wording? Oh god, Nobody would _destroy_ him.

But then Nobody smiled, a small, unreadable smile, and took a step back. The blackboard faded from existence, as did the mortarboard on his head. "Well," he said. "This sure is an interesting turn of events."

"Nobody is going to let Ace and I out _now!_ " Hex added suddenly, aware that he hadn't exactly put a timestamp on his previous statements. "Right this instant, with no tricks, or traps, or – or whatever!"

Nobody began to open his mouth, but Hex – now a lot more confident than before – said, rather quickly, "and Nobody's not going to say anything at all to me!"

Nobody's mouth snapped shut, and he adopted an almost comical expression of frustration.

"Now," said Hex, utterly delighted at how well this was working out for once, but trying very hard not to show it, "the way out – _please_."

Again, the frustrated, disgruntled look, and Nobody was glaring daggers at Hex, and also mouthing something silently that was impossible to interpret. But he waved a hand through the air, and immediately a doorway appeared – standing in the middle of the blank white room, attached to nothing and closed firmly. He gestured to it with an exaggerated, furious curtsy in Hex's direction.

"That leads... out?" Hex asked, and Nobody nodded. He frowned. "Where, exactly?"

Nobody shrugged, and pointed at his throat, mouthing something that Hex assumed was along the lines of ' _I can't talk, idiot'._

"Oh – uh, right. Nobody can speak if... if it's relevant?"

" _Thank you,_ " said the Word Lord with a dramatic sigh. "In response to your question, I took the liberty of landing us just outside the Doctor's TARDIS. But if there's anywhere in particular you'd like to be, _Master Hex –_ " he adopted a trilling Scottish accent for the last two words that was uncomfortably familiar.

"No, that's good," he said, and began to reach for the handle of the door – before freezing. "Hang about, where's Ace?"

"Other side of the door, of course," Nobody said, crossing his arms. "Are you going to go meet her, or are you going to stay here and _gloat?_ "

Hex grinned, properly now. "Nah, that's beneath me. Although, I'm thinking – by now, I'd say I actually _deserve_ that gold star you were offering before, right? No?" He quickly spun to face the door, twisting the handle and opening it. "Actually, nevermind. I'm gonna go now, _bye –_ "

And he ducked through, slamming it behind him, heart racing and still beaming – he _did_ it, he'd just beat a murderous, reality-warping, multi-dimensional alien with _logic_ , and he just knew that the Doctor would be outright thrilled when he heard about _this._

"McShane, you'll never guess what I just did!" he yelled to Ace, who was no doubt somewhere nearby. "We're getting out of here! We're –"

And then he stopped, and looked around properly, and realized two things. One, he wasn't outside of the TARDIS, like Nobody had promised. In fact, he wasn't anywhere at all. If the last room he was in had been completely white in every way, _this_ room was utterly black, absorbing all light. It felt like he was floating, untethered, in a vast, empty void. And the door he had come through was gone, like it had never been there in the first place.

The second thing, of course, was that Ace was not there with him.

"Ace?" he called, and then, accusingly, "Nobody, I can't see a way out – what are you playing at?"

There was utter silence, for a moment, and then the distant sound of somebody laughing reached his ears. But _laughter_ might not have been the best word to use, since it sounded more like the sound that somebody would have made while being dragged backwards through broken glass. Hex looked around frantically for the source of the laughter, but there was none – and worse, it seemed almost like the darkness around him was compressing inwards on him, like it was coming for him with great grasping claws, preparing to choke the life out of him.

And then everything flickered, went grey then static, and then to what could only be described as the flicker of the color bars on an old-fashioned television, and Hex's eyes were both open and closed and once, and he might have even yelled out –

But then he was back where he started, sprawled on the ground in the white space, and Nobody was hanging upside-down from where the ceiling should have been, laughing _madly –_ great, heaving cackles, like he had just experienced the funniest moment of his life. "Oh _Tommy,"_ he howled, scarf tangling around his shoulders and hair horribly disheveled in ways that defied the laws of physics, "you didn't think it was going to be that easy _,_ did you?"

Hex struggled onto all fours, tried to say something, but really, what _was_ there to say? He ended up choking on air, staring at Nobody in fear and disbelief, and – and –

Nobody was still laughing, black tears of delight streaming down his face, shoulders shaking in mirth. "Oh, oh _my._ If it was that simple to defeat a Word Lord, we'd all have gone extinct _long_ ago. Let's finish our lesson, shall we?" With a click of his fingers, the chalkboard was back and the mortarboard was improbably back on his head, despite the fact that he was still upside-down. Written on the board: 'WORD LORDS: A CLASS FOR MORONS WHO THOUGHT THEY COULD ESCAPE'. "I don't have to do _anything_ I don't want to! Let me put this into perspective – Time Lords, right? They have the _possibility_ of travelling through time and space, because of their TARDISes, but they don't _need_ to. In fact, quite a lot of them choose not to – and as much as I'd usually hate to admit it, there are some striking parallels at play here. A Word Lord's CORDIS only grants them the _possibility_ of using language for their own means." He grinned, razor-sharp, and wiped away some of his tears of mirth. "For example. 'Nobody is going to let Ace and Hex out of the CORDIS' – well, saying that definitely makes it something that _could_ happen, but why for the sake of All's Hand would I want to do _that?_ "

Hex swallowed. "So – you were just..."

"I was just messing with you, yeah," Nobody agreed gleefully, "and _gods,_ you should have seen the look on your face when you _realized-!_ " Another fit of laughter seemed to overtake him, and he fell over sideways, cackling madly. "You actually thought you had won? Just like that? _You?_ "

 _Of course it didn't work,_ Hex was thinking, furious at himself, _of course, nothing can ever just be that easy. Why the hell did I ever think a plan of mine would ever succeed? Stupid, stupid, stupid –_

"I've changed my mind, though," Nobody said seriously, the laughter falling away from him like an article of clothing being discarded to the ground. He sat up. "You're not as useless as I thought you were – that was legitimately the funniest thing that's happened to me in centuries." He stifled another chuckle, although with some considerable effort. "Ha – maybe I _will_ keep you. Or sell you to some circus, somewhere... I mean, I'm more likely to get a good price there as opposed to the _Daleks..._ "

He stood up after a few seconds of contemplation, smirking.

"Well," he said, "I've got to be off. Not that this hasn't been entertaining, but I _do_ have other things to get on with. Y'know the drill."

And before Hex could even speak (not that he would have known what to say), Nobody was gone – vanished into nothingness.

And after a few more seconds, so was he.


	7. Chapter Six: Three Rules

****After an eternity, or maybe a couple of minutes, or maybe even a handful of years, Hex returned to existence, and as he did, he thought of how _exhausting_ this whole 'continuing-to-exist' business was starting to become. He considered how nice it might be to just stop for just a while, take a break from the universe – and this was seconds before he crashed into the ground with an _oof_ and remembered that he had forgotten to remember to stay upright.

There was a brief moment as he sat up, groaning, in which he was really quite _hopeful,_ because it very much looked like he was back in the console room of the TARDIS. Victorian-style architecture, sweeping arched ceilings, console blinking and humming, carpet-fading-to-floorboards underneath his hands. It was all so familiar that he could have almost wept _,_ and for that golden, shining second, he was very nearly convinced (cliched as it was) that the entire experience had been a bad dream.

And then he began to notice things – the non-existence of the TARDIS's internal engines, the absence of any doors at all, the twisted impossibility of the console spire (it hurt his eyes to look at for any amount of time), and of course there was Nobody No-One, fiddling with buttons and levers at the console. Any semblance of hope pretty much disappeared instantaneously right there.

He was still in the CORDIS. Of course he was.

Nobody glanced up at Hex and flashed him a brilliantly jagged smile that did not in any way reach his eyes. Then, in an instant, any attention that had been directed Hex's way was now focused somewhere else – at _someone_ else, who was on the ground in the half-shadows where the light from the console spire didn't reach.

"Oh – Dorothy, you can move now," he called into the shadows cheerfully. "But no coming within, hmm, let's say a ten-foot proximity to me – and no sneaky trying to murder me in various creative ways, either! That gets boring fast. I wouldn't advise killing your friend," he added, frowning, "but I guess you can do what you like! Free will and all that, huh?”

The response from the person in the shadows: an animalistic growl, deep and threatening, that almost seemed to shake the walls of the console room. Hex, having only just risen to his feet, took a startled step backwards, eyes wide.

Nobody seemed completely unfazed by this, but something terrible had just occurred to Hex. _Dorothy. Oh no._ He squinted into the darkness at the edge of the console. Luminescent yellow eyes stared back at him, but they were strangely familiar. "Oh my god. What did you _do_ to her?"

"Would you believe me if I told you she did it to herself?" Nobody took in Hex's unconvinced, borderline-horrified expression, and then shrugged. "All right, don't believe me, then. I don't have time for this." He made a shooing motion at Hex, away from the console. "You kids go play now! And keep the noise down! I gotta get some work done.”

Hex shot him another horrified, terrified look, but took a step away from the console, then another – each one bringing him closer and closer to the darkness and whatever lurked within.

"Ace?" he tried, cautiously.

A low, predatory hiss, and then nothing else.

Hex swallowed, hard, and edged into the shadows. _It's only Ace,_ he reminded himself, _Ace wouldn't hurt me. Not of her own accord, anyway_ – and that brought up some scenarios that he really didn't want to consider, _thanks,_ traitorous brain.

"Ace, it's – it's Hex," he said, now fully out of the light emitted by the console. He chanced a glance at Nobody No-One, but it didn't look as if the Word Lord was paying him any attention. "I know things are, are _really_ super bad right now, and you... well, you might not exactly be yourself... but –"

He felt something – fabric, maybe – brush past him roughly on his blind side, and he spun around just in time to see –

– red leather jacket, torn and ripped; hair spilling out of its once-neat braid, messy and tangled and roughly framing her face; face twisted into a snarl and _those teeth aren't right_ –

– and all of this, caught in his mind like a freeze-frame, because seconds later (faster than he could process) he was flat on his back on the ground, gasping for breath and she was crouching on his chest, pinning him roughly but firmly there.

"Oh my god," he wheezed, struggling against her grip, "oh my _god, oh my god..._ "

It had never been any secret that Ace was stronger than Hex, by a long way _._ He had seen her lifting amounts more than half her weight in the TARDIS gym with an ease and grace that was frankly terrifying. (He suspected that the Doctor was possibly even _stronger,_ despite the Time Lord's diminutive size, but he and Ace hadn't agreed to that arm wrestling match he had been hinting at for a while, and all of that was pretty much beside the point at the moment.)

But even as strong as Ace was, this was something completely different – something _insanely_ different. It wasn't just muscle that had helped her overpower him that quickly, there was an almost primal force behind her movements. And as quick as Ace sometimes tended to be, no human being should have been able to move _that fast..._

"McShane," he said, gasping in air when he could – her knee was pressed halfway against his throat, and it was getting more and more difficult to breathe with that on top of his complete and utter panic, "Ace – fuck! – what did he _do_ to you, you're..."

She snarled in his face, teeth snapping tightly together inches from his face. He jerked abruptly backwards, pressing himself into the floor and trying to roll sideways, to move away from her. It didn't work – she had him completely trapped. From here, he could see the yellow tint that had overtaken her eyes and the catlike quality of her pupils, and how her teeth were far too sharp to have been natural, human ones. And then there were her nails, digging into the flesh of his hands. He couldn't see them, but like her teeth, they were far too sharp.

There was ink staining her skin almost everywhere – hands, face, neck, and it was in her hair and splashed across her jacket too. And Hex could tell she didn't recognize him at all. It was the look in her eyes – something that was almost _hungry,_ and not at all in the way that he would have liked.

"I'd be careful if I were you," Hex heard Nobody calling merrily from across the console room, "she gets _vicious_ when she's hungry."

Ace's head jerked up to stare at Nobody with that same yellow, disconcerting stare, and she glared at him sullenly for a second or two (evidently irritated of Nobody's order not to get anywhere near him) before returning to look at Hex for a couple of minutes – and he barely dared to breathe as she did. It felt like she was looking for something – maybe judging how delicious he would eventually be?

After a very long time, she moved, suddenly and violently – leaping off of Hex for only the barest second so she could flip him over in what almost seemed to be a predatory version of some sort of wrestling move. He ended up with his nose pressed painfully into the carpet of the CORDIS, which he could now see close-up was nothing like the TARDIS's equivalent. His left hand was caught beneath his body, and he was only now realizing how badly it hurt – spikes of pain were shooting up it and tears were forming in his eyes, although they might not have been just from his hand.

" _Mmm, good meat,_ " said Ace. Her voice wasn't quite right, almost a parody of its usual self. It sounded like she wasn't used to talking through the fangs that had found their way into her mouth. She resettled onto Hex's back, nails that were more like claws digging in fiercely – like a cat kneading its prey seconds before devouring it. The movements were deliberate, practiced. " _Fresh meat,_ " she added, close to his ear. He could hear a smile in it, but he knew it wasn't a friendly one. There was no doubt about it – this wasn't Ace anymore. Hex was going to _die_.

"Please," he whispered, not sure quite what he was begging for. His life? Her return to sanity? Both? "Ace – _please..._ "

" _Would you run?_ " she asked, quite suddenly, and when it became apparent that he was too stunned, too terrified to understand what she was saying. " _If I free you, will you run from me?_ "

"I –" There was something about the situation that he was in that compelled him to be honest, so he tried his best. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know."

" _I could tear your throat out right now,_ " she hissed, breath ghosting across the back of his neck. " _You would not resist. I can smell it on your flesh. You would not even fight._ "

He couldn't argue with that. "Ace – please. We're friends – you, you – oh god," he realized, in barely a whisper, "if the Doctor finds out that I let you kill me..." He was almost hyperventilating now, and his eyes were squeezed shut tightly, "he'll – he's gonna resurrect me just – just so he can murder me _himself._ "

There was a long silence, in which Hex fully expected to die – instantly and messily.

But nothing happened.

He could still feel her hot breath on the back of her neck, and he was still pinned face-down on the carpet. But she wasn't moving.

He dared to open his eyes, and tried to turn his head slightly so he could look up at her. Incredibly, she allowed it to happen – even going as far as to move her hand from his shoulders so he could look up properly.

"Ace?" he asked after another second of silence.

" _I – no._ " She sounded unsure. " _I can't... I don't..."_ She broke off suddenly, and then – "– _Doctor?_ " she asked, sounding almost like her normal self.

"The Doctor!" he exclaimed, delighted, _she remembered_ – but not too loudly in case he startled her back into... well, into 'bite-y' mode. He met her eyes, but couldn't see any change there. "The Doctor – we travel with him, remember? He's... he wears that stupid hat, and carries a ridiculous black-and-red umbrella everywhere..."

She wasn't trying to kill him, which was definitely good, but she wasn't saying anything. He pressed on.

"You know, when we first met, back in the hospital that I worked at – with the Cybermen and everything? I'm pretty sure I'm still traumatized by that whole thing," he rambled, trying desperately to think of things to say that would hopefully trigger some sort of memory. "Hell of a meeting, that, and I can't believe I decided to come with you, I _still_ don't know why I came, because you – you and the Doctor – you were really close and I was, well, I was _me._ And I can't believe you even let me come with you, and sometimes I don't know why I stay, because – because things tend to get bad real fast around here, and, and we get hurt sometimes; a lot of the time really, and – like now. Things are super bad now –" He was going in a bad direction here, and he desperately tried to swerve away from it. "– but, there's some good things too! Like, like..." _Oh god. Were there any good times? Like, ever?_ "– that time we went to Monte Carlo to steal the Doctor's diamond, that was fun, right? We dressed up and you had a _terrible_ accent, and we danced with those two other girls – and, and, _um,_ when we landed in that snowfield on that Colony, and we started making snowmen, and the Doctor managed to dodge every snowball that we threw at him... somehow..." _Maybe don't mention everything that happened afterwards though._ "...and a couple weeks back, when we decided to play poker in the library, the Doctor won every round. He was definitely cheating," he added, momentarily distracted for what was going on by vague indignation, "and also I think you might have been too. There were _far_ too many aces at the table that night. But I guess that's the Doctor for you..."

Her grip loosened even further, even though she hadn't quite let go of him yet. "... _he... Professor?_ "

" _Yeah,_ " Hex agreed fervently, snatching at this, "the Professor, that's right. You call him that sometimes, and I never figured out _why –"_

"Three rules," she murmured. Her nails were no longer digging into his back, and she was now talking almost normally – the fangs and oddly-shaped teeth must have disappeared. But the yellow in her eyes was still there. "He... he told me. Ages ago. Three – rules?"

"Yeah?" Hex's fingers were crossed; he couldn't believe this was actually working. "What rules? What did he tell you? Ace?"

There was a very long silence where it seemed like neither of them were breathing, and then he heard Ace exhale. "One..." It seemed to take an eternity for her to say it. "...he's in charge..."

"Sounds about right," Hex muttered, and then, "what's next? What else did he say?"

"Two – he's the Doctor, not the – the Professor." Incredibly, a faint smile flashed across her face. It was almost fond. "And... three..."

The pause was longer this time.

"Ace?" he asked tentatively. "What was the third thing?"

"We never actually figured that one out," she said, and when he turned again to see her, the yellow had retreated fully from her eyes, leaving only the warm brown that they usually were behind. She was fully herself again, and she was smiling at him and her eyes might have even been a bit watery. "Hello, you."

" _Ace,_ " Hex said, relieved.

"Yeah," she said, "yeah, that's me. I'm back; I'm me again. But... oh, hell. Hex, I nearly _killed_ you –"

"But you didn't," Hex said quickly, trying to reassure her, "everything's fine. Well – it's _not_ fine, we're still in the CORDIS, and there's that _lunatic_ god-guy-thing, and – well, I think he's trying to sell us or something, but..."

"Hex, you're rambling," Ace said rather fondly.

"Yeah," he said, "I know. Sorry. It's just stress, probably."

She laughed, and he felt, rather than saw her sigh again immediately afterwards. "God," she said. "This is a fucking mess."

"It usually is," he said.

"Yeah, but – more so than usual."

Hex was inclined to agree with her. He squirmed slightly; they were definitely having some sort of moment here, and he _really_ didn't want to wreck it, but it was getting really difficult to breathe from where he was. "Ace, you're still sitting on my back."

To her credit, she immediately scrambled off, apologizing (which was definitely a rare thing from her) but he was still pretty sure that a couple of his ribs had been broken in the last few minutes. She offered him a hand, which he took, and hauled him to his feet with far more ease and balance then she should have had, given all the action that had just taken place.

"There we go," she said, grinning at him, and then, looking around at her surroundings, "wait, is this the TARDIS?"

"No," said Hex, but Ace was already shaking her head, having figured it out.

"No, it can't be – doesn't feel right, the smell's all wrong, and –" she froze, staring at Nobody No-One, still at the console, who she had apparently only just noticed the presence of. "Oh," she said, and it was very soft and very dangerous and for a moment Hex was seriously worried that she had grown fangs and yellow eyes once again.

Nobody turned briefly in their direction, and took in the scene – the two of them, next to each other, just out of the shadows, Ace's hand lightly resting on Hex's arm, Hex's other hand hovering almost protectively just over Ace's back – and he let out a soft, mocking coo. "Oh, so darling Dorothy's back. What a shame. I was just getting used to your fursona!"

"Listen, scumbag," Ace began acidly, but Nobody rolled his eyes and flicked his wrist, and Ace's mouth snapped shut instantly. Hex made a tiny, distressed noise, but Ace patted his hand and gave him a reassuring look tinged with annoyance – _I'm fine. I want to punch him, but I'm fine._

"Wow, you're a lot more noisy when you're like this," he said. "Shut up for a while, will you? I need to get these co-ordinates right." He motioned to the two of them. "Seriously, go play outside for a while – or, well, not _outside,_ but do whatever. And don't rough each other up too much this time," he added, turning away, "your dad will be _furious._ "

And that, it seemed, was that. He was no longer even paying attention to them. Ace and Hex glanced at each other quickly.

"You're covered in ink," he said quietly, brushing a finger against some of it that had long since dried against the leather of her jacket.

Ace glanced down too, and almost looked surprised. And then she acquired the expression of one who was remembering something that she rather would not. "Yeah, that... was Nobody's." And apparently she could speak again, which was definitely a good thing. She grimaced. "I tried to stab him, I think. When I was... well. All cheetah, I guess."

Hex made a vague noise of agreement tinged with confusion.

"I'll explain later," she said, evidently aware of how many questions had been raised by the situation. "Seriously, I know I sound like the Doctor, but it's a really long, really _weird_ story, and we don't have time for it right now."

Hex nodded his assent. "Speaking of the Doctor –" he started.

"Nobody said something about going to get him, to sell him with us."

"He told me basically the same thing."

Ace cast him a worried glance. "You don't think –"

"He would," said Hex, with complete certainty. "This guy's _whacked,_ Ace, it's like – everything's a game to him. He says he's doing it for the money, but... I just don't know. Why would a guy like him even need money, I bet somebody out there, somewhere's said 'Nobody has an unlimited source of money'. And even if they haven't. I just have. He literally doesn't need to sell us. I –" he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Ace, I think he might be doing it because he thinks hunting us down is _fun._ "

"Yeah," said Ace, "yeah. I think... you might be right."

There was a brief silence where neither of them really knew what to say, and then Hex blurted, "okay, look, I'm sorry if this isn't the time or whatever, but did he seriously just call the Doctor our _dad?_ "

Ace stared at him incredulously. "You're right, Hex," she said, "it _really_ isn't the time."

"But he _did_ say that," Hex said. "Or implied it. Or whatever. Oh my god, the Doctor's not our dad. Is he?"

"God no, that would be _weird,_ " Ace said.

"I mean, probably not _my_ dad," allowed Hex, "you're right, that's super weird to think about, but I think he might be _your_ dad."

"My dad's probably dead, Thomas," Ace said, elbowing him. There was more than a bit of actual force behind it. "I haven't seen him for literal _years._ "

Hex rubbed his side, wincing. But there was something so wonderfully normal about this conversation – the teasing, the arguing, the stupid hypotheticals. It was so regular for them that he almost felt like crying. "I never said he was your biological dad, just – like, your space dad. Or something. Space dad sounds about right, yeah?"

"He's not my space dad!" Ace protested. "He's not _anybody's_ dad, he's – he's the Doctor!"

Hex cast an unimpressed sideways look in her direction. "I'd like to just remind you," he said, "of that time last week when you were complaining about breakfast and you told him you were hungry, and he looked you dead in the eyes and said 'hello, Hungry, I'm the Doctor'."

"Bad jokes do not a space father make, Hex."

"He owns a mug that says 'WORLD'S GREATEST TIME LORD'," Hex said. "He drinks out of it every morning."

"I _know_ that _,_ " Ace said. "I _gave_ it to him."

"Ace," said Hex, "you literally called him 'dad' last week."

"I did not," Ace protested, and then she paused. "...did I?"

" _Yeah,_ you did," Hex said. "We were in the library. You were half-asleep, and the Doctor caught the book you were reading because you were about to drop it into your hot chocolate, and he told you to," he affected the Doctor's Scottish accent, probably badly, "' _get some prrrroper sleep before you end up injuring yourself, and not just innocent books_ '. And then he kind of bopped your nose with the end of his umbrella. Although, I mean, he does that a lot anyway."

"And then I called him 'dad'?" Ace asked after a second, frowning.

"No, you told him to fuck off," said Hex. "But then he told you to mind your language, and you said 'sorry, dad', and I think you fell asleep after that."

Ace's mouth opened, and then shut, and then she crossed her arms somewhat defensively. "I don't remember this."

"Yeah, you probably wouldn't have," Hex said. "That was after Nocturne and all; you were kind of..." He trailed off. "You know."

Ace probably would have probed further into this, but it was about at this exact moment that Nobody pulled down a large lever on the CORDIS console with dramatic flair, and spun to face the two of them with his hands spread wide. " _Well!_ What a nice, cozy reunion! Glad to see you're all caught up. I'm sure you're wondering," he added, "why I've brought us all here today."

"Not really, no," Ace said, with the most flatly disdainful look that Hex had ever seen come from her. "You're obviously about to sell us to – well, to whoever it is that you've decided to take up on their offer. The Daleks, was it? Or – ooh, Hex, _imagine!_ " She nudged Hex, eyes going wide with faux-realization. "Maybe Premier Jaeger wants a piece of us!"

Nobody actually laughed at this, although it still sounded like shattering glass. "Wow, _drama queen_ much?" He pouted in her direction, like a slighted schoolgirl. "And I thought I was the only one here. Nah, nothing like that."

"Are you planning to just kill us, then?" Hex asked.

Ace jabbed him hard in the side, which was pretty much par for the course when Ace was standing directly besides him. "Don't give him ideas!"

"Again, nothing so _extravagant,_ " Nobody said, rolling his eyes, "although, if you _insist –_ " and the laser gun was back in his hands again, and pointing right at them.

" _No!"_ Ace and Hex exclaimed in perfect unison, taking a step back together.

The gun vanished. "That's what I thought. No, actually, I'm trading you in."

"Trading?" Hex blurted. "What for?"

Again, the eye-roll, as if Hex was missing something vitally important. "For the legendary Blue-Eyes White Dragon, _obviously._ I feel like it's about time to d-d-d-d-duel, you get me?"

There was a moment of silence where the two humans just stared at him.

"No? Really? Wow. I thought that was pretty good." Nobody sighed, a touch sadly, although it didn't seem at all genuine. "For your information, I have taken up a deal that's going to allow me to exchange you two for the Doctor _himself._ "

"You _what,_ " went Ace.

"The Doctor sent out a message some time ago to the general population of the universe," said Nobody No-One, sounding rather smug but also somewhat puzzled at the same time, "offering himself up in exchange for his two companions. How about _that?_ "

Hex said aloud, startled, "he did _what?_ " The two of them (well, mostly Hex) definitely weren't worth as much as the Doctor – to Hex, it sounded like a _really_ inadequate tradeoff. _What was the Doctor planning._

Ace's face twisted up in horror, and she muttered something along the lines of 'that _idiot',_ as well as some choice curses that Hex really shouldn't have been able to understand.

Nobody grinned, apparently delighting in these reactions. "I figured that since all I have at the moment are a useless man-nurse and a violent furry that seems to be bent on breaking the sixth-dimensional laws of physics –"

" _Hey,_ " said Ace and Hex together, possibly objecting to either their own or the other's description, although it was hard to tell.

"– trading them for the universe's most wanted Time Lord seems like a pretty good deal, right?" Nobody finished, as if there had been no interruption, "

"For _you_ maybe," Ace said mutinously, and at the same time Hex blurted, "you're just gonna let us go? Like that?"

"Well, providing he goes through it," Nobody said, raising an eyebrow and checking a scanner, "then yes. That's the general idea of a deal." He laughed explosively. "What, you think that just because I'm a godlike murderer with _really great hair_ and unlimited weapon choice, I'm gonna try to double-cross him?"

"We'd be idiots if we didn't," Hex said flatly. Ace, beside him, nodded in agreement.

"I'm a Word Lord, Tommy – do you really think I'd go back on my word?" Nobody snorted. "'Sides, I don't think it's _me_ double-crossing that you need to worry about."

Hex frowned. "What d'you mean?"

Nobody paused, halfway to reaching out towards a large pull-switch set into the side of the console. He spun around, scarf flaring out into geometrically impossible swirls and whorls. "Sorry, have you even _met_ the Doctor before?" he asked incredulously, taking a step forwards as if to advance upon Hex – although he didn't actually move any closer. "People call _me_ twisted, but the guy's practically got double-crosses and manipulations oozing out of his _ears._ " He giggled suddenly. "You know what? I'd actually be _disappointed_ if I found out he'd come into this situation with any less than four schemes and five backup plans."

"So, you don't expect him to give himself up?" Hex wondered, and then, "well, that does sound like the Doctor, I guess..."

Ace sighed. There wasn't any real weight to it, though. It was more like a simple, soft exhale of breath. "Hex, do you have any idea how a hostage situation works?"

Hex cast a glance at Nobody – who had lost attention in them once more, like a child lacking object permanence (but probably considerably more deadly when in the midst of a tantrum than a child would ever be) – and then said, more softly, "no, actually. I bet you're an expert, yeah?"

"Not exactly," Ace said, stepping back and matching his tone, "but I have been in my fair share of them, so I'd say I'm qualified to comment." A wry smile curved across her face, but quickly disappeared. "Listen. It's all about the double-crosses."

"I gathered that, thanks," Hex deadpanned.

"Yeah, but _especially_ in situations like this, where neither side trusts the other – the important thing is to have as many double, triple, quadruple, and so on crosses as you can _._ They all add up, eventually – probably – and for the most part, whoever's got the most of them wins."

"Well, we're all right then," Hex said, with some amount of relief. "I bet you anything the Doctor's got exactly forty-five of 'em already, and _then_ some. We'll be fine!"

"Mm." Ace looked worried. "Yeah."

"What is it, McShane?"

"Well... you know the Doctor. He's – well, all right, he's _great,_ almost scary-great at making plans, but when it come to putting them into action..." She trailed off, wincing.

Hex's mind instantly and helpfully provided him with a vivid flashback to the whole Dark Husband, Shining Wife situation. He visibly and full-bodily _shuddered,_ but was about to say something that would hopefully make Ace stop looking so grim about everything, when –

The entire CORDIS console room shuddered. Hex nearly lost his footing again, but Ace managed to catch him by the arm, steadying him.

"All right, kiddos!" Nobody said briskly, clapping his hands together and twirling on the spot twice. "Seatbelts, everyone! We're going on a field trip!"

Ace and Hex exchanged that look that only acquaintances of the Doctor really had to use as often as they did – the one that undeniably meant _I really hope the Doctor knows what he's doing._

Nobody's hand shot to the switch on the console that Hex could recognize easily as the equivalent of the TARDIS's door switch, and his fingers wrapped tightly around it. Back came the disturbing grin – something between that of a shark's and something older and far more dangerous.

"We're off to see the wizard!" quipped the Word Lord –

– and pulled the switch down, hard.

Everything went white.


	8. Chapter Seven: Show Yourself

_Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nunc aliquet sapien ac felis varius finibus. Aliquam sed justo suscipit, fringilla justo et, ultricies lorem. Pellentesque blandit odio aliquet sapien bibendum lobortis. Integer vel nisl libero –_ riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and – _it is a truth universally acknowledged –_ words words words – _delorem ipsum –_ people assume that time is a strict progression of – _pain itself_ – or words – forty-five, forty- _five – it was the worst of times, it was the worst of times –_ the offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky – _forty-five? forty-five_ – "my, _my,_ the landing is rather rough this time. I hope the Doctor's companions don't end up dead. Don't think the Doc would be too pleased" – forty-five, or maybe _fourty-five_ (but no) – where a broken row of houses stood between us and the harbour, and where the eye encountered all sorts of stratagems – conveyance – _four –_ nobody's there – _five –_ nobody | ˈnəʊbədi/ | (pronoun) | _no person; no one –_

 _– "_ s _o the man picks up the parrot and tosses him into the freezer to teach him a lesson, see? And he hears the bird squawking for a few minutes, but all of a sudden the parrot is quiet. And the man opens the freezer door and the parrot walks out, looks up at him and says," –_

"... _ouch!"_ went Hex, hitting the ground at an unpleasant angle, which was beginning to be a recurring theme. He ended up face down (of course), and noted quite randomly to himself that the floor was made of some rough sort of sandstone.

He rolled over onto his back, wincing. Ace was within arm's reach, doing much the same. They were in between shelves, that much he could tell, although his eyesight was still more than a bit blurry, so he couldn't see much else.

"Yeah, intertextual travel doesn't tend to mix well with humans," said Nobody No-One, who looked perfectly unruffled, was standing upright, and was leaning on an umbrella nearby in a manner that very much indicated he was trying to emulate the Doctor. "Or any inhabitants of this reality, honestly!" He winked, and flipped the umbrella end-over-end, catching it neatly. "I'm surprised you didn't throw up."

Hex's vision cleared, allowing him to sit up properly without incident and glance around. His suspicions that had been aroused upon seeing the shelves around them was now confirmed: they were definitely in some sort of ancient library, because the shelves around him stretched out as far as the eye could see, and all of them were filled to bursting with hundreds upon thousands of scrolls – lined up neatly and organized with labels and subsections.

"Whoa," he couldn't help saying aloud. Despite the situation, it was an awe-inspiring sight. They were in some kind of grand hall designed specifically for the purpose of keeping all of these scrolls. There weren't windows, not exactly, anyway. Instead, there were panels that looked like they had been made out of very thin stones, and the panels glowed with natural light that seemed to come from the sun outside. At one end of the hall – too far away to run to, but just visible – was a pair of massive stone double doors. And as far as Hex could tell, there were no people around at all. The place was completely abandoned.

He turned his attention back to their captor, who had started whistling some sort of tune that sounded suspiciously and disturbingly like the Pokémon theme song.

The umbrella that Nobody was now carrying wasn't the Doctor's, exactly, although that didn't change the feeling of wrongness that came along with seeing it. Its canvas was rainbow-patterned, loud and garish in the way that the Doctor tended to detest, and although its handle was molded into the shape of a question mark, the color was a bright, eye-popping pink.

"Okay," said Hex, " _where_ exactly are we? And when?" he added, almost as an afterthought. It wasn't a question he would have been asking if there wasn't the possibility of time travel being involved.

"Ancient Egypt," said Nobody, apparently willing to share. "545 AD, to be exact. The Doctor set the meeting place," he added, frowning, "but I don't know why he chose the Library of _Alexandria_ , of all places – if anything, all the words nearby are going to make me even more powerful."

"The Library of Alexandria?" Ace asked, with a raised eyebrow. "That _would_ be the same Library of Alexandria that ended up getting burnt to the ground, right?"

Hex winced. He had made the connection too, but there was no way that the fact that they were here wasn't part of the Doctor's plan, and if Ace had just inadvertently messed the whole thing up...

"Yeah, I _know that_ ," Nobody sing-songed at her, rolling his eyes. "But I got to choose the time and date for our little meet-and-greet, and I chose a point _ages_ after it was first destroyed, and a _long_ time before it's going to be destroyed again, permanently. I'm not _stupid._ " He glanced from side to side. "But he evidently _is._ Where is he? Doesn't he know I've got things to do; places to be?"

With Nobody muttering angrily to himself, Hex was almost comically startled when Ace nudged him and whispered-shouted at him, " _look!_ "

He gave her a quizzical look and followed her gaze upward, to the ceiling. In a plaque set high above the bookshelves, a phrase was carved, large enough so anybody browsing the scrolls would be able to see it: _The place of the cure of the soul._ "Uh – that's nice, but... what am I supposed to be looking at?"

"That's Latin, Hex!" Ace said, clearly excited about this. "We're in Alexandria, and it _should_ be written in Latin, but we're reading it in English!"

"We're–? _Oh,_ " Hex said, getting it. "The TARDIS! The translation thing –"

"Right! It's gotta be nearby!" Ace rose up onto her toes, trying to see over the shelves, and spot any sign of their big blue box.

Hex nearly started to do the same, but then noticed Nobody watching them. Apparently he had realized the same thing as them, because although he didn't physically change in any way, he seemed to become bigger in many respects – absorbing more light, more time, more space (although it was hard to pinpoint exactly _how_ he was doing this). He strode towards the intersection at the end of the row of shelves they were in, umbrella in the crook of one arm, and a gleeful, almost sadistic grin crossing his face.

" _Doctor!_ " he practically screamed, slamming a foot down onto the ground, and a wave of force, intangible and indescribable radiated outwards from where he had done so, blowing back Ace's hair and making Hex stumble back a step. Reality seemed to flicker slightly. "I know you're _there!_ **_Show yourself!_** "

Something in his words was inhumanly powerful – they seemed to contain a particular sort of electric energy in them that was making Hex's hair stand on end. They echoed for much longer than they should have, and Hex was suddenly aware of how very scared he was.

And then there was silence, so complete that nothing should have been able to break it.

But barely a second passed before another sound reached them – footsteps, slow and measured. Accompanying them, like a percussive instrumental, the faint, irregular tapping of an umbrella's tip on sandstone floor.

"There's really no need to shout," said a voice very softly indeed, the sound nonetheless carrying across the entire library. And the Doctor, twirling his umbrella with familiar ease, stepped out from behind a row of shelves, and came to a halt, tapping the tip against the ground twice. "Good afternoon," he said pleasantly.

"Professor!" Ace exclaimed immediately upon seeing him, equal parts delight and exasperation.

Even from a distance, Hex could see the worry and anger that was tightening around the Doctor's eyes. It was subtle, but definitely there. But the thing was, as soon as he saw Hex and Ace, about half of all that faded, and he almost smiled. He inclined his head slightly; a silent question.

Hex gave him a tentative double-thumbs up and an utterly terrified look. The Doctor's eyes crinkled up slightly in apparent amusement, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he turned to look at Nobody, and frowned. "It's evidently not enough that you've stolen my old scarf," he said rather dryly. "I see you've decided to bastardize my old _umbrella_ , too."

Nobody grinned widely and tossed it up into the air, twirling it around as he caught it. "We match now!" he said, displaying the hot pink question-mark handle proudly to everybody in the vicinity. "Twinsies!"

"I sincerely hope not," said the Doctor, and Hex could see the grip on the handle of his own umbrella tightening ever so slightly. "Ace? Hex? Would you mind coming over here?"

Hex definitely wasn't about to argue, and in fact had already been in the process of going, but Ace had already grabbed his wrist – "come on, you" – and began to speed-walk (it was closer to a run, actually) in the Doctor's direction, dragging him behind her.

" _Actually,_ " said Nobody loudly but somewhat lazily, "I don't think Ace wants to do that, now – does she?"

Even as the words left his mouth, Ace had already frozen in place, but definitely not willingly. She glanced down at her feet, which were firmly planted on the ground, and made a noise of utter frustration. "Goddammit."

"Ace?" The Doctor's eyes had gone narrow and he looked worried. "Oh _no,_ Ace – what did he do?" He whirled on Nobody. "What did you _do?_ "

Nobody just smirked. "Hey, I didn't _force_ her to say 'nobody tells me what to do'. That was all her."

Ace grimaced, still frozen to the ground. Hex was hovering very close to her, completely unsure of what to do – stay with her, or go to the Doctor? He wasn't sure what the Doctor wanted him to do in this situation, anyway.

"...I fucked up, Professor," Ace said, uncharacteristically contrite. "Sorry."

"Oh, _Ace..._ " He looked very old and very sad for a moment, but then the corner of his mouth twitched. "Mind your language."

Ace grimaced pointedly at him, very much not amused by this.

Nobody coughed loudly, evidently fed up at this. "Ex _cuse_ me. I can tell you're absolutely _delighted_ to see each other, etcetera, etcetera, so on and so forth, but are you really going to give yourself up, Doctor? Or is this all just an excuse for bad wordplay?" He paused, and then added, "which I don't object to, per se, I'd just really rather, y'know, _get on with it._ "

"But of course," said the Doctor placidly. "First, however, I'd _rather_ like the opportunity to reconcile with my friends, however briefly – if that is _quite_ all right with you?"

Ace and Hex exchanged a significant look. As Ace had once said to Hex, a (relatively) very long time ago: _The length of time the Doctor spends rolling his rs is directly proportional to the amount of shit that's about to go down._ And right now, he was rolling them for all he was worth.

"Feeling sentimental?" Nobody wondered, eyebrow quirked slightly.

"If you like," the Doctor agreed. "As well as some... other things. You _are_ planning to have me killed at some point, you know," he pointed out. "I need to set some affairs in order."

Nobody tapped his (the Doctor's?) umbrella thoughtfully on the ground – once, twice, and then he sighed dramatically. " _Fine,_ " he said, throwing another vast roll of his eyes in for good measure, "but only because I'm _nice._ Take four minutes, then – actually, four-and-a-half; I'm feeling super generous for some reason!" He bounced – literally bounced into the air – and landed on the top of one of the shelves. Reality seemed to warp around him ever so slightly so he didn't actually have to duck to prevent himself from bumping his head on the ceiling. He waved a hand magnanimously at them from his unconventional throne. "Go forth!"

"Oi," said Ace angrily, failing to move from where she was.

"Oh, _sorry._ " Nobody flicked a hand dismissively. "Yeah, you can go hang out with them. Don't do anything I wouldn't!"

Hex grabbed Ace's shoulder to steady her as she stumbled, and then the two of them ended up sort of dragging each other – it was hard to tell who was doing more work – away from Nobody No-One.

They were within _meters_ of the Doctor when Nobody spoke up again. "Oh," he said, with the air of somebody suddenly realizing something, "Ace – if the Doctor tries anything funny... would you be a dear and choke yourself?"

Ace paused for a second, and her teeth audibly ground together. "Well, I don't exactly have a _choice_ now _,_ do I?" she spat.

The Doctor, too, was frowning. "Is that _r_ eally necessary?"

Nobody flipped his umbrella up into the air, and when it came back down again, it was a cricket bat – although the handle was still pink. He stuck out his lower lip, pursed it. "I don't know. Is it?" Another flip. Now the cricket bat's handle was still pink, but now in the shape of a question mark, which was more than a bit impractical. "Are you planning on trying anything funny?"

"No," said the Doctor instantly. His expression was hard to read. "No," he said again, "no, I'm not," and then, to Ace and Hex, with that familiar tone that said _hurry up_ all over, "come along, you two – we don't have all day."

As soon as they got within barely an arm's reach of him, he began hurriedly shepherding them sideways – to a set of shelves beyond Nobody's line of sight. It was very sudden, and Hex ended up tripping over and hitting the ground yet again _–_ and since the Doctor was holding onto both his and Ace's shoulders, the two of them ended up doing much the same, and the end result of all of this was that they all were sitting on the ground in an impromptu, uneven triangle. It seemed to be a silent agreement between them that they would pretend they had meant to do this.

" _Professor!_ " said Ace again, "why the hell would you come here? He's planning to kill you –"

The Doctor didn't get up, exactly, but he hauled himself into a kneeling position, adjusting his hat. "Come closer," he said, hurriedly but rather quietly too. "We have to talk. I have no doubt that our _friend_ out there is listening in, but I have no wish to make it an easy task for him.”

Obligingly, Hex shuffled closer, and Ace did too, and when they were all practically knee-to-knee, the Doctor did something very unexpected, and more than a little uncharacteristic – he swept the two of them into a tight hug.

" _Uh,_ " went Hex, nonplussed. The Doctor almost never did anything that went anywhere _near_ the territory of 'physical affection'. Brief brushes – taps of the nose, a hand clapped to the shoulder, a guiding touch to the elbow – yes, okay, those were occasional and expected, but they were generally directed towards Ace specifically.

Ace made a surprised little noise that quickly turned into a laugh. "Of course," she said, "like this day wasn't weird enough already. Next you'll be _apologizing._ "

"I really should; this entire situation is at least partly my fault," the Doctor said, squeezing lightly.

"Who are you," Hex said, only partly joking, "and _what_ have you done with the Doctor."

He patted Hex on the back once and then withdrew to face them both properly again, looking almost anxiously between the two of them. Hex felt as if he were being x-rayed. "Are you all right? Did he harm you in any way?"

"I'm fine, but Ace –" Hex began, but Ace swiftly cut across him.

"He's _not_ fine, his hand is well messed up, _look_ –" She grabbed his arm, forcing it upwards. Hex tried to tug it back, but only succeeded in jarring his already-tender wrist even further, and he hissed in pain.

"Let me look at that," the Doctor said, joining the tug-of-war for Hex's hand, but with a considerably more gentle touch. Hex acceded after a moment, although somewhat reluctantly, and let the Doctor examine his painfully burnt hand that he just hadn't had time to attend to, with everything that had been going on.

"He said five minutes," Hex said, trying not to develop a nervous twitch (although honestly that should have already happened by now). "Shouldn't you be –?"

"I can multitask," the Doctor said, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, buzzing it back and forth over Hex's hand. "The TARDIS –"

"It's nearby?" Ace asked eagerly.

"Yes, yes, yes, just beyond that row of shelves," the Doctor said impatiently, indicating the shelves in question with his free hand. "The door's unlocked. Get inside as soon as you can, and Ace – you do know where the emergency return switch is, don't you?"

Ace bit her lip, and then nodded. "Back to Earth?"

"Mm," the Doctor said, and switched settings. The pain was starting to recede, and Hex let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. "Mister Hex's time, rather than yours. Hopefully you'll be able to... well." The sonic screwdriver was switched off, and the Doctor released his light hold on Hex's hand. "Never mind that for now. Is that better?"

"Y-yeah. A lot. Thanks."

"I'm glad," he said. "Hopefully you'll be up to throwing and catching any number of things that come your way soon enough."

He had probably intended that to sound utterly jolly and off-hand, but here was a moment; a very long moment, in which Ace and Hex just looked at him without any surprise whatsoever. This was exactly the sort of non-sequitur of a comment that tended to  mark the beginning of the Doctor's latest chess-like grand scheme. And for once, Hex wasn't even annoyed.

But then Ace's arm twitched, moved ninety degrees upwards to rest at her throat, and her eyes widened. "Uh – _Professor,_ if you were, you know, feeling the inclination to plan anything 'funny',  not that you _would_ or anything – I think I'd feel a lot safer for once if you _kept me completely in the dark about it._ "

The Doctor shot her a look that implied that she was the one who had uttered the non-sequitur, not him. "Ace, I'm wounded _._ " It was light in tone, but he genuinely appeared to have no idea what she was talking about. "Not everything is a plan or scheme, you know."

Hex stared at the Doctor. "Doc – you're not really going to –?"

"No tricks," he said grimly. "No plans. Not this time." He swept his umbrella from the floor and into his lap, and wrapped his hands tightly around the handle, as if it were a lifeline of some sort. "You heard the Word Lord. If I try anything, Ace... well. Self-asphyxiation," he pronounced the words quite delicately, but with no small amount of distaste, "is _quite_ a nasty way to go."

Ace pressed her lips together, and really didn't look happy. "I – Doctor. You know I wouldn't blame you if you just went and –"

"I know," he said, cutting across her. "And I'm not going to. And if you thought I would," he added, giving her a Look, "you don't know me as well as I'd expect you to by now."

She looked slightly abashed by this, but not much. "But," she began, and didn’t get a chance to continue.

"Okay, look," said Hex, "he only specified consequences if the Doctor does something, but what if I'm the one that comes up with the plan, and I..." He trailed off. He couldn't think of a plan. The Doctor was giving up, and there _was no plan._ "Ace can't do it, because of – of the word thing that he did to her, and you – you can't. Because of Ace. But if she knows that you're not the one doing it, then maybe?"

"Mister Hex." The Doctor's hand was on his shoulder, and his gaze was warm, although more than a bit sad. "I appreciate your concern, but I rather suspect that at the first sign of any trickery, he'll simply order Ace to choke herself anyway. Or worse," he said, with the faintest hint of a dark expression creeping over his features.

"Get on with it, why don't you?" came Nobody No-One's voice, carrying with it a distinct air of annoyance. "Are you planning to die today or _what._ "

"Just a moment," called the Doctor, almost cheerfully, and then turned his attention back to the two humans sitting in front of him. His expression sharpened, became more serious somehow. "I reiterate: get to the TARDIS. As soon as you can. There is absolutely no guarantee that Nobody will hold up his end of the bargain, so you need to leave his sphere of influence as soon as _possible._ "

"Why the hell did you agree to this, then?" Hex's eyes were wide. "If you know that he might not even–"

"Because it was my _only option,_ " he said, pressing a hand to the ground as if to steady himself. "Believe me when I tell you that there is absolutely, physically and _completely_ no way for any being from this dimension to enter or exit a Word Lord's CORDIS without being explicitly taken there or removed by the Word Lord themself. The only way you would have left the CORDIS otherwise is _dead_ or _enslaved,_ or some gruesome mixture of both!"

"We're not worth that much!" Ace retorted. "The universe can get on well enough without me and Hex, Professor, but it _can't handle your loss._ "

"I hate to say it, but Ace is right," Hex said, biting his lip. "I know we give you a lotta crap about manipulating us and all, but – what she said. The universe isn't going to last very long, I reckon. Not without you around."

"The universe can learn to _cope!_ " the Doctor snapped, furious, and then that anger softened, turning into something gentler, more regretful. "We don't have time to argue. Just promise me –"

"The TARDIS. Yeah, we got that," said Hex.

"Good." He stared at them, an unreadable expression on his face. There was a brief moment wherein it almost looked as if he was going to pull them into another hug, but instead he stood up, motioning for them to do the same. "Ace –"

Ace scowled. "I heard you – TARDIS, I _know._ I'm impulsive, not _stupid –_ "

"That wasn't what I was going to say," he told her, almost gently, and placed his red-handled umbrella into her hands. She stared at it for a long moment, apparently not understanding. She didn't move to hold it herself. After a second, the Doctor reached out and closed her fingers around it.

"N-no." Her voice cracked slightly. "Professor, this is yours. I can't..."

"Take care of it for me," he told her solemnly, and pressed a finger lightly to the tip of her nose. Just as quickly, he turned away. "Mister Hex –"

"Yeah?" Hex said, and the Doctor flipped his white Panama hat down off his head and through the air towards him. Without thinking, he caught it.

"Hold onto my hat," the Doctor told him, the corner of his mouth curling up slightly.

Hex, much like Ace had; simply stared at the hat, uncomprehending.

The Doctor sighed. "Oh, _really_. Must I do everything myself?" He reached forward, plucked it out of his hands, and spun it neatly in the air before depositing it neatly on top of Hex's head. He stepped back, and did that thing of his where he smiled with just his eyes. "There you are. It suits you."

"No, it doesn't," said Ace, clutching onto the umbrella so hard her knuckles were beginning to turn white. "It looks ridiculous."

He smiled properly, then inclined his head towards them – a simple, grave nod; communicating what words couldn't.

And then he turned to the main aisle of books, and with the mournful air of a person about to attend his own funeral, began to walk. And within minutes, he was standing before the shelf where Nobody was perched, glaring upwards at the Word Lord.

"Well?" he said – impatient in the way that only the Doctor could be when faced with almost-certain death. "Do get on with it, then."

"You need to say the words," Nobody informed him, eyes going innocently wide. "Whatever ones you want, take your pick – just make them good ones, huh?"

The Doctor was silent for a moment, and then he seemed to deflate a bit. "Nobody," he said, the words soft and reluctant, "can do as he wishes with me, in exchange for the lives of my friends."

This statement seemed to echo in the silence – a contract, a promise made. There was _power_ in the Doctor's sentence, as well as more than a bit of finality.

In the aisle where the two humans still were, Ace's hand shot to Hex's arm and she squeezed it tightly. Neither of them had made the slightest move to leave yet.

Nobody began to grin almost literally ear-to-ear – the expression stretched out for just a bit too long than generally physically possible. There were a _lot_ of teeth. "Give me a sec, Doc," he said. "This is a big moment. I gotta savor it, you know?"

"If you must," said the Doctor.

And Nobody began to laugh like a madman – even louder, even more furiously, manically gleeful than he had been back in the TARDIS, so long ago. There were black tears of glee running down his face, and his head was thrown back to the ceiling. The Doctor, for his part, just looked resigned, and maybe a little annoyed – which seemed like more than a bit of an under-reaction, considering the gravity of what had just occurred.

It was over, Hex realized.

Nobody had _won._


	9. Chapter Eight: Lost In Translation

Hex knew that they should leave – should go back to the TARDIS, like the Doctor had told them to – but he just couldn't. It felt wrong to abandon him like this; it would be like running away. And the Doctor never ran away from danger.

"We've gotta do something," he muttered to Ace, even as Nobody continued howling with glee.

"Agreed," Ace said, her tone clipped and anxious, "but _what?_ "

Hex was about to say something – although it was really more than a little unclear exactly what he had been planning to say – but before he could, he saw the Doctor's head turn ever so slightly in their direction. Nobody didn't notice, being caught up in his ingloriously over-the-top laughing fit – the Doctor very deliberately caught Hex's eye, and for a second, Hex thought that he was going to order them back to the TARDIS again. But that wasn't what happened.

Instead, the Doctor _winked,_ very quickly, and turned back to face Nobody once more.

He could tell by Ace's short inhale of breath that she had noticed it too. And Hex knew instantly that, without a doubt, the Doctor most definitely _did_ have a plan (and he had been an idiot to think otherwise, honestly, this was the Doctor, when did he not have a plan?). This realization was accompanied by immense relief, and then the second, equally flooring realization that the Doctor was going to be absolutely _insufferable_ about the whole thing when it was all over.

"Excuse me." The Doctor cut neatly through Nobody's slowly dwindling laughter. "If I may –"

He let out one last bark of laughter, and then slipped off the edge of the shelf to land, cat-like, in front of the Doctor. "What?"

"I have a hypothetical, a very brief one, to pose to you." The Doctor looked utterly calm. If he had been in possession of his umbrella, as opposed to Ace, he would probably have been tapping an even, steady beat onto the handle.

"Oh, I don't like where this is going," Nobody said, frowning, "you're a tricky one, Doctor. This is a plan, isn't it? Part of your big," he wriggled his fingers dramatically, " _master scheme._ Go on," he added, "I'm intrigued now. Don't forget, though – any tricks; Dorothy _dies._ "

The Doctor simply nodded, not even blinking at another threat on Ace's life. Maybe he was getting used to it. "What would happen," he said, "if I switched off the language centers in the brains of everybody nearby? Say," he added, "a four-hundred-five meter radius. What would happen then?"

There was a very long silence, and then Nobody laughed again. This time it was more subdued, and very, _very_ cold. "Are you suggesting that you use the TARDIS to disrupt all the words in the vicinity?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," said the Doctor. "Again; it's only a hypothetical."

"Well," said Nobody, eyes narrowed. "I _suppose_ that it may have some... effects on me. But as far as I know, nothing of the sort's ever been attempted. Anything could happen. Oh, and dear Ace over there would die _instantly,_ " he added, _"_ just in case you were worried about this becoming something less than a 'hypothetical'." He made bunny-eared quotation marks with his fingers.

"I see," said the Doctor, and his eyes darted back to Hex and Ace again.

"Now, if we're quite finished," Nobody began.

But the Doctor wasn't listening. "Ace?" he said – a question and an apology and a warning, all at once.

"Go ahead, Professor," Ace said, leaning out from behind a shelf to meet his gaze properly. The unspoken words were there: _it's all right. I trust you._

Nobody's eyes narrowed sharply. "Now, hold on just a minute–"

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said – it wasn't exactly clear who he was apologizing to – and quick as a flash, he whipped out his sonic screwdriver from some pocket, somewhere, and pointed it in the direction of the TARDIS. It buzzed sharply, the harsh whine cutting over whatever Nobody had been saying, and then something shifte

_snap_

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_snap_

\- not to worry, Mister Hex!" the Doctor was shouting, "language should reassert itself in – ah!"

Hex blinked and tried to figure out what was going on and why nothing made any sense and why Nobody No-One wasn't there any more –

– wait, _what,_ Nobody No-One wasn't there any more.

The Doctor didn't look as pleased as Hex thought he should be in this turn of events. He had moved forwards to the shelf that Nobody had been standing in front of, and was now frantically combing through the scrolls that were there – whatever he was looking for, he evidently wasn't finding it and appeared _very_ annoyed about it.

"Wait, what did you –" Hex began, taking a step in the Doctor's direction, but the Time Lord shook his head, something wild and panicked in his eyes.

"Ace," he told Hex urgently, still searching through the shelves of books, "help Ace!"

Hex spun, and saw Ace on the ground, hands around her throat and struggling hard against her own grip. She was gasping for air and making incomprehensible, desperate, choking noises.

"Oh god," said Hex, and practically tore across the room, falling to his knees in front of her – forgetting the Doctor for the time being. He did his best to help – peeling back her fingers, wedging his arm in-between her clawing hands – but he was, more or less, fighting a losing battle. "Stop being so _strong,_ " he complained, panting.

Even though she couldn't really speak at the moment, she still managed to shoot him an absolutely withering look. Hex winced. "All right, yeah, sorry –" and they both redoubled their efforts in trying to prevent Ace's Word Lord-mediated suicide. It really was _not_ going well at all. Ace was weakening, visibly – not fighting her own grip as much, and a lot of the color in her face was disappearing.

"Doctor," Hex yelled, "whatever you're looking for, can it _wait?_ We could kinda use your help here!"

"I'm afraid it _can't_ ," the Doctor called back. There were a pyramid of discarded scrolls by his feet now, and he was going through the remaining ones at an almost feverish rate. He was talking very fast, too, an anxious patter. "The thing is – I may have banished our word-twisting _friend_ for the moment, but language disruption can only do so much. I _suspect_ that he's been forced into a nearby text, although, I'm not sure which one it is... not yet..." He threw an armful of scrolls deemed unnecessary to the ground, and swept across another armful. "Ace will be fine when the Word Lord is destroyed for good –"

"Hurry it up, then!" Hex said, just as the Doctor let out a short cry of triumph. He snatched the scroll he had been reading from the shelf so fast that it crumpled in his grip, and hurried across to Hex and Ace, joining them on the ground.

"Got him," the Doctor said with sort of dark triumph, and dropped the scroll briefly onto the sandstone floor so he could assist in wrenching Ace's hands from her throat with the sort of easy strength that you never would have thought he had. He pinned one of Ace's arms neatly underneath a knee. "Mister Hex, if you could –"

"I'll try," Hex said, and with considerably more struggle, succeeded in doing the same with her other arm. Ace was looking slightly less blue than before, but appeared to be having some difficulty breathing.

"This sucks," she decided hoarsely, staring at the ceiling. Her arms were twitching irregularly at her sides. "Can we leave now?"

"Not long now," the Doctor said reassuringly, patting her shoulder. "Just try to breathe for now, hm?”

Ace nodded, although she looked annoyed – Hex suspected that it was because she hadn't got the chance to punch Nobody properly yet, and honestly he couldn't blame her.

The Doctor unraveled the scroll with his free hand, letting it unspool along the ground. He hunted around in the apparently infinite realm of his jacket pockets. "Now, let's see..."

Hex leaned forward as best he could so he could read the text on the parchment, and was rather relieved when he found he actually could. He had been half-convinced that the brief few minutes when the Doctor had done – well, whatever it had been to the language thing in the TARDIS – would have permanently lasting effects.

" _'The man stood frozen behind the confines of the parchment',_ " Hex read aloud, " _'face twisted in anger and hand pressed against the edge of reality. It almost looked as if he were about to break out from his papered prison at any moment, to escape from –'_ "

Before Hex could continue, the Doctor growled, "that's _quite enough of that_ ," and drew the red pen that he had retrieved from within his jacket sharply across the page, neatly crossing out the rest of the sentence.

Hex's eyes widened. "He's – sorry, he's _literally_ trapped inside the text?"

The Doctor brandished his red pen menacingly in the direction of the scroll. "Yes, and I rather think that unless he wants to be subjected to some good, old fashioned _constructive criticism,_ he's going to stop trying to escape and _listen to what I have to say._ "

Hex risked another glance at the scroll. Improbably, the words had changed, even though there was no visible shift in the text's overall appearance. " _'"Cute party trick," said the man, folding his arms – although the scowl remained on his face – "but trapping me in an ancient medical text, clever as it might be, is_ not _going to stop me from killing dear little Dorothy." And the man grinned.'_ "

"Don't you _dare,_ " said the Doctor, and furiously crossed out the word 'Dorothy', scrawling in 'Ace' in its place. "Here are my terms, Nobody No-One. You leave us alone – you swear to a binding contract to do so, and you _follow it to the letter_ . You release us from any and all effects that we have caused by misusing your name, now and forever, and if you _don't_ ," he paused to take a breath of air, "if you _don't_ do all of this, I will _destroy_ you."

There was a second or two where Hex tried to find his place in the text. "Er... ' _The man was silent for a second, or maybe two, and then he started to laugh.'_ Doctor, I don't like where this story is going."

The Doctor frowned, and took up the task of reading the narrative aloud – they were doing it mostly for Ace's benefit at this point, since she couldn't exactly see the scroll from where she was. "' _It was the laugh of somebody who knew exactly what his next move was going to be. "All rightio," he said cheerfully, and snapped his fingers. "Ace–" said the Word Lord,' -_ oh, no, no, _no_ –" He was scrambling for his red pen again, but it was too late.

Ace mouthed 'oh, fuck', as soon as she realized what was going on, and then she was no longer struggling for control of her hands. In fact, she was no longer doing anything at all. Hex looked down at the text, and felt his heart skip a beat when he saw what had been written there.

" _Ace," said the Word Lord, "stop breathing._ "

Hex was momentarily frozen to the spot – years of medical training had, maybe unsurprisingly, not prepared him in the _least_ for this situation. He felt a faint whoosh of air beside him, and looked up to find that the Doctor was now standing.

"All _r_ ight," he said. He appeared perfectly serene and the R in 'right' had been rattling around like a runaway train – some serious shit was _definitely_ about to go down. "I suppose that makes everything rather simple, doesn't it?"

Hex scrambled for the scroll again; scanned it feverishly. "He – he says that he'll let her live if you let him out of the text. Doctor –" _A human being can survive from five to ten minutes without oxygen being delivered to their brain. Any longer may result in serious brain damage._

He nodded, and held out a hand. "My hat, if you would?"

"Your–?" Hex was confused, extremely so, but quickly realized that it would probably be better if he didn't ask questions for the moment. He scooped up the Doctor's white hat from where it had fallen, and tossed it over.

The Doctor caught it, quite neatly, with a showy little twirl that was more than a little unnecessary, then pulled back the paisley hatband, letting a box of matches drop into his hand. He slid it open, pulled out a match, and struck it hard against the box's side – it sparked to life, casting shadows against his face.

"I presume you've heard of the burning of Alexandria's greatest library," he said. There were flames dancing in his eyes, and no trace of humor on his face.

Hex pulled the scroll closed to him, reading quickly. "He says you're bluffing," he said – no more time left for reading exact words; paraphrasing the text would have to do. "And – Doctor, he's right, the library's already been burnt ages back. You – you can't –" and then he stopped, because who was he to tell the Doctor what he could or couldn't do?

The Doctor seemed to understand, though. "I'm rather afraid I _can_ , Mister Hex," he said. "In fact – calling the event in question 'the destruction of the Library of Alexandria' is more than a bit a misnomer, because it implies that there was only ever one, _definitive_ destruction of it. Which is most assuredly not the case."

Hex stared at him for a moment – match in hand, held evenly before him; steady, unwavering expression – and then remembered Nobody No-One and the scroll. "'Only one burning, though'," he read.

"History is... well, shall we say _divided_ on that point." The match was burning down, now, and the Doctor had to shift his fingers slightly downwards to prevent himself from behind burned. "Modern texts claim that there was only ever one, but really? Who are we to say that another, unrecorded – or perhaps un _recovered –_ incident never happened? Time is tricky that way, you know." He shook the matchbox – it was nearly full. "Last chance. Let us all go, and you may survive this yet."

"He..." Hex swallowed. He risked a glance behind him: Ace wasn't moving. "He's laughing again. Saying that you'd never go through with it; there's too much knowledge in this library for you to destroy. He... seems pretty confident that you're bluffing."

"Does he _really._ " The Doctor's tone could have frozen lava. "Well. We'll see about _that._ "

The match in his hand had nearby burnt down by now, blackened and twisted all the way to the end. And quick as a flash, the Doctor tossed it neatly into the pile of scrolls that had been gathered while he was searching for Nobody. They went up in flames; glorious, terrible flames. The parchment withered and burned, flaking away and reducing to ashes within seconds. The fire caught onto a nearby shelf, and began the process of consuming it as well – all of the shelving units were wooden, intricately carved, and so very flammable.

"D – you –" Hex's eyes were already beginning to water, but he still managed to read what was written next. "He's surprised that you weren't bluffing, and _honestly so am I._ "

"Good." The Doctor struck another match and tossed it, seemingly carelessly, over his shoulder. Another shelf caught alight, flames creeping up to the roof. "I'd hate to become predictable." A third, and fourth match were lit – they went left and right, respectively – and now the room was quickly filling with smoke and flames and it was getting downright _dangerous_ in here. Outside the room, Hex could hear distant voices; running footsteps, and some people were already beginning to bang on the doors, which were probably locked. Evidently, the fire had already been noticed.

"Hex!" The Doctor was tucking away the matches. "The scroll!"

Hex gathered it up roughly and pushed it in the Doctor's general direction – he scooped it up, and glared at it briefly. "Well? Final chance, No-One; in case you thought I wasn't being absolutely serious by this point. No last minute escapes – there will be no works of literature for you to jump across to. Not so much as a postage stamp will be left by the time I am _done here._ "

Hex scrambled over to Ace, and pulled her away from the flames that were beginning to creep up towards her body. She was dead weight – not exactly heavy, but moving her was definitely a struggle.

"To reiterate," the Doctor said, "I will drop you into the flames here and now, without a second thought. Your essence – your _makeup,_ even your CORDIS, will be consumed, utterly. You will, as much as you are able to, _die._ " The sound of people pounding on the outside doors and books crackling and burning to ashes filled the air for a moment. The Doctor directed a fierce glare toward the parchment in his hand. "Do I make myself clear?"

Hex couldn't see the text of the scroll from where he was, but judging by the expression on the Doctor's face, the Word Lord trapped inside hadn't responded favorably to this.

Abruptly, the Doctor strode over to the nearest burning shelf, thrusting the scroll directly into the midst of the flames. The paper caught alight. Hex could have sworn that he heard Nobody scream, even though that was probably impossible. Wisps of back smoke curled upwards and outwards, and the Doctor kept holding the scroll there, even though his hand was probably getting painfully burnt under the immense heat.

Hex was now coughing hard, and struggling to breathe – although probably not as much as Ace was. He crouched, keeping low, and considered starting CPR on her. Pros: it might give her a better chance of survival until the Doctor finished doing... whatever. Cons: she probably physically _couldn't_ breathe, at all – but, if there was a chance...

He pulled himself over to her, and began performing chest compressions, casting glances over his shoulder. He could only see the vaguest of flashes of what was going on between the flames, but it certainly looked like the Doctor was still holding the scroll in the pyre of wood and paper, and that the scroll was taking far longer to burn than it really should have. The Doctor was talking – his mouth was moving, although Hex couldn't make out the words.

Hex was twenty compressions in when Ace sucked in a deep, panicked breath of air, and sat bolt upright, nearly slamming straight into Hex, who had been bending over her. She immediately started coughing and cursing indistinctly between said coughs.

"Take it easy, McShane," Hex said, trying to ease her back to the ground. "You're fine. You're all right. You're –" She snarled at him, actually properly snarled at him, and he saw that her eyes had gone yellow again. Instinctively, he backed away, horror-stricken. "Oh my god. Ace –"

"Ace?" came the Doctor's voice from the other side of a mound of burning, shriveling books. It was no longer in the 'I will destroy all my enemies indiscriminately' register, but there was still that imperative, anxious undertone to it. "Ace! Talk to me!"

Hex opened his mouth to reply, but choked on a mouthful of ash and just ended up coughing weakly while trying to back away from her. He was sure that right there and then he was going to die – not from the fire or from the Word Lord, but from Ace; from somebody he very much considered to be a close friend. And that was possibly the worst part of all of this.

And then, incredibly, Ace _smiled_ . It was far sharper than it usually tended to be, but it was definitely an _Ace_ smile – gleeful in the face of improbable odds. There were sparks of flame dancing through and around her hair, giving her a sort of halo, and she had never looked more vibrant or more _alive._ She rose to her feet, snatching the Doctor's umbrella from where it had fallen away from her, and clenched one hand around the handle. "I'm fine!" she yelled, hoarse but voice just as loud as it usually was. "Be right back, Hex," she added almost cheerfully to him, and patted him on the shoulder before turning sharply to the fire. Without missing a beat, she strode straight through the flames without even flinching.

The only thing Hex could really think to do was follow – but he skirted around the outside of the shelves, finding a relatively safer path towards the action.

He rounded the edge of the shelves just in time to see the Doctor raising Nobody's scroll out of the flames, putting out the fire by means of batting it out with the sleeve of his jacket. The Doctor saw him first, and nodded in hurried greeting. "We've got to get out of here!" he shouted.

Hex couldn't have agreed more, but there was definitely something wrong with this picture. "Doctor, what are you _doing?_ Just let him burn!"

"He agreed to let us go in return for his own survival, and in Word Lord terms that's practically _binding._ " The scroll was now only slightly smoking, and barely scorched. The Doctor eyed it with distaste. "If I don't keep this safe from now on, there could be nasty consequences."

"But!–" Hex began, and then he saw a flash of red jacket out of the corner of his eye, and he had a thought. "–but, _hey._ Doctor, you need to keep it safe, right?" He coughed, gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the smoke. " _Just_ you?"

The Doctor rolled up the parchment neatly, and did that half-smile thing of his. Hex got the impression that the Time Lord had caught onto his plan already. "Well, I suppose not. If there was somebody else that I trusted very much to safeguard it –" A slight quirk of the eyebrows. "–how's your catching arm, Mister Hex?"

"Pretty good, Doctor." He was willing to bet a great deal of money that Nobody No-One was cursing up a storm _,_ trapped inside that scroll of text. This made Hex feel a lot happier than he was prepared to admit.

"Excellent!" That bright, almost childish grin appeared; the one that tended to only pop up when the Doctor was _extremely_ delighted with something. "In that case –" And the Doctor swung back his arm, and threw the scroll overarm, high over the flames, which seemed to jump up as it passed above them, as if desperate to consume it. Hex instinctively reached out to grab it, but it never reached him, because at that very moment, Ace showed up.

She came from seemingly nowhere – leaping far higher than any human should ever be able to, and with one hand outstretched – the Doctor's umbrella still in the other. She intercepted the scroll neatly in the downstroke of her arc, and landed in a shower of ash and sparks with a laugh that was more of a gleeful howl than anything else. Before anybody could say anything, she took either end of the scroll in her hands and snapped them apart, opening it. "Well?" she said, eyes yellow – which could have been a trick of the firelight or something else entirely. "Go on. _Beg_ me not to end you right now. _Plead_ with me. Convince me not to do it."

There was a moment when she was silent, simply staring at the page in front of her. It was unclear, exactly, what Nobody No-One said to her, and neither Hex nor the Doctor made a move to go find out. The flames were inching up, higher and higher, and not a single book or scroll or manuscript anywhere around them appeared to be still intact.

And then Ace said, quite abruptly, "yeah, that's what I thought," and she tore the scroll cleanly in half longways, then did it again the other way for good measure. "Burn in hell, fucker," she told the remains, which were already starting to leak black smoke, and dropped them into the raging fire.

No fanfare. No further words. The scroll containing Nobody No-One was, within moments, being erased from the word in perhaps one of the most permanent ways in existence.

(Hex fought the instinctive urge to start cheering.)

Within seconds, it was gone, reduced to so much ash and burnt, unreadable scraps of parchment, and Ace was running back towards Hex and the Doctor. "This place isn't going to hold up for much longer!" she shouted. "We've gotta get out of here before the roof comes down!"

"Quite right!" the Doctor called back, and pointed in a direction that was just as fire-engulfed as everywhere else. "The TARDIS is this way–"

"Right behind you!" said Hex, and the Doctor led the mad dash through the rapidly collapsing library. There was a lot of cursing and yelping, and at one point Hex's hair actually caught on fire, but, as was often the case in these situations, they made it to the TARDIS just in time.

"Get in, get in!" said the Doctor, wrenching open the door, and practically shoving them through the doorway before tumbling in himself. Just before he slammed it shut, there was an ominous, loud _crack_ from outside, and tiles and beams of wood began to shower haphazardly down from the roof above.

And then all noise from outside was cut off – there were only the familiar, subdued sounds of the TARDIS left.

They all lay there, sprawled across the console room floor in relative silence, for a while – covered in ash and the occasional scorch mark, utterly disheveled, and coughing intermittently, but all alive.

"Well," said Hex eventually, "we just burnt down the Library of Alexandria." He paused for a second. The reality of this was finally sinking in. It was a pretty big reality. He wasn't sure if he liked it. "That's... something. That's – that's a thing that just happened."

"It's gonna be a _hell_ of a story to tell at parties later on," Ace said, and then started laughing almost uncontrollably, even though it really wasn't that funny. After a second, Hex joined in, and even the Doctor began to chuckle. It was the borderline-hysterical laughter of a trio of people who were just really quite glad to have survived an awful, terrible experience.

Hex, still giggling weakly, fell back so he was lying against the wall of the console room. "Oh god," he said. "This isn't funny. Doctor, you just destroyed – you just burnt _all those books._ Oh my god. There must've been so much information in all of those, and they're all _gone._ "

"Oh, so first it's 'we did it', 'we burnt the library down'," Ace said lethargically, raising a hand vaguely into the air to point at Hex, "but now that you've realized how bad this whole thing is, it's all the Doctor's fault? I see how it is, Hex, I see how it is–"

"Hey, it _is_ all the Doctor's fault!" Hex defended himself, and then realized what he was saying and quickly backtracked. "I mean – it's not like I'm not grateful and all –"

"Charming," the Doctor noted dryly. At some point, he had sat up properly, and was now cross-legged and brushing dust off his hat.

Hex, too, sat up. "No, I mean – okay, look. Let's put it like this. Great rescue, Doctor. Nine out of ten for style, another nine for planning; I'm gonna give it six out of ten for actual execution, 'cause that could have gone a _lot_ better, let's be honest, and eight out of ten for incidental cheetah. But the mark for not setting famous historical repositories of knowledge on fire is _so far below zero_ right now that I think you actually broke the scale."

"All in all," said Ace, never one to miss the chance to insert a cheeky comment. "That went _much_ smoother than it usually does."

The Doctor sighed pointedly at Ace, and then raised an eyebrow slightly in Hex's direction. "It was more than a little extreme, I must admit. But this burning was due to happen – although this particular instance wasn't common knowledge, which is why the Word Lord didn't know anything about it. And it's not as big of a tragedy as you seem to think it is."

Hex tried to read his expression. "...because it's happened before, and is gonna happen again more times, even without your input?"

"Well, partly," said the Doctor. But the legend of the Library of Alexandria's destruction being such a tragedy is... well, it tends to be just that. An exaggerated legend."

"How can you say that?" Ace asked. She didn't exactly sound angry – just curious. "We _saw_ the place. There were all those books –"

"Scrolls, mainly," the Doctor corrected.

"You know what I mean."

"I do." There was a pause. "It's true that the loss of such a large cache of history is, and always be, a horrible, terrible thing. But more information was lost to the human race due to degradation and decay over the centuries." A wry smile. "You don't see humans kicking up such a great fuss about papyrus decay, do you?"

"So just because the loss isn't _that_ bad, it makes it okay?" Hex's tone, like Ace's, wasn't accusing, but there was definitely some tension underlying there.

The Doctor sighed. He looked tired, which was probably justified, considering the circumstances. "I could make a multitude of arguments, Hex – the library's books were primarily copies of outside texts; it's been destroyed so many times, so what's one more? – but the fact remains that you are, in fact, completely right. It was a terrible act on my behalf, which isn't mitigated in the slightest by the fact that I was doing it to save the two of you." A tiny shrug. "Does that make it a selfish act?"

 _No,_ Hex thought, _but that's definitely some heavy stuff._ He hesitated, not sure how to voice what he was thinking – burning down a library to save his life was great and all, but he wasn't all that sure he really deserved a rescue of that magnitude.

"Thanks," said Ace suddenly, saving Hex the trouble of speaking, and threw the Doctor's umbrella across the console room, in his direction. She smiled. "For saving us, I mean. It probably wasn't the most ethical way to do it, but... you know. Nobody got hurt."

The Doctor, chuckling, reached up and caught the umbrella neatly out of the air. "He certainly did. And it was no trouble. Well," he amended with a frown, "to be honest, it was far more trouble than was strictly necessary. But I feel that the end result was well worth the stress."

"What, arson without consequences?" Hex said jokingly.

The Doctor didn't rise to the bait. "No," he said. "The two of you. Alive and well."

And then there was silence again, but only for a second, because almost immediately the Doctor sprang into life – leaping up from the ground to stand at the console with that familiar, cheerfully manic energy that he sometimes had. "Right then! To somewhere else, I think – somewhere quiet. Paris, perhaps? Or the Eye of Orion –"

"I might just go and pass out in bed for a week or so," Hex said, only half-joking.

The Doctor pulled the dematerialization switch down, hard, and the TARDIS began to move and whir around them. "Ah," he said, energy retreating. "Yes, well – that's more than fair enough, I suppose. In that case..." He trailed off, seemingly unsure of what to say.

Ace sighed after a second or so of this awkward silence. "I'll make the tea, shall I?" she said in a long-suffering manner.

The Doctor muttered something embarrassed and vaguely affirmative, and hit a few buttons before beginning to twiddle the array of dials above the readout monitor. "The library, I think," he said.

"The library sounds good," said Hex, and then – "One last thing. "Ace, you said you'd explain the whole – what did you call it? – 'cheetah thing'? You said you'd explain it later." He struggled with words for a second and then made a hopeless motion with his hands. "What the hell _was_ that?"

Ace and the Doctor exchanged a loaded glance. The Doctor looked more than a little concerned, but Ace waved him off with a, "don't worry, I've got it all sorted." And then, to Hex: "like I said before; very long, _very_ weird story."

Hex shrugged. "We've got time, don't we?"

"Time is one thing that we most definitely have an abundance of," the Doctor said in a manner that was probably meant to sound very wise. And then he smiled, and deposited his umbrella at the base of the hatstand next to the doorway. "Come on, you two. That tea won't brew itself, you know."

And somewhere far beyond anyplace near to Earth, the TARDIS traveled on.


	10. Epilogue: Nobody Left

****Somewhere off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, there is a conversation taking place between two people. It is taking place over the remains of a wrecked, ruined and utterly desolated library, although fortunately it's only the actual library that's been burnt, not the rest of the building.

"A tragedy," says one of these two people – not in English, but it's our privilege as outside observers to be able to understand it in such – "a terrible, _terrible_ tragedy."

"Yes," agrees the other. There is a fair amount of sad head-shaking involved here, of course. "It's hardly surprising, though, with all the lynch mobs –"

The first person nods. There are a lot of lynch mobs at the moment. A lot of things tend to get torn apart and destroyed, although it's usually people, not libraries. It's a politics thing. "Somebody's going to need to clean this up," they remark.

"And re-copy all the books –"

"– _again..._ "

This isn't the first time the library has been destroyed and rebuilt, and by no means will it be the last.

"Terrible," says the first person again, after another moment of silence. "Just terrible... do we know how it started?"

"Nobody knows," says the second person. "Apparently the fire was so fierce by the time anybody got in, it was too late to do anything about it."

"And whoever did it was gone?" asks the first.

"Apparently," replies the second. "I wonder if there was anybody inside when it happened?"

"If they were, they'd be dead by now," says the first person, waving a dismissive sort of hand through the air. "No-one could have survived a fire like that."

"Hm. I suppose." They sigh. "We should go, before somebody forces us to help with the clean-up."

The two people move away from the library, never to be remembered by history. And as they leave, we hear this final snippet of a conversation:

\- "How many men do you suppose it will take to clear all of this away?"

\- "At least forty-five, I'd wager."

And then, precisely three-quarters of a minute later (and not any longer) there is a shudder which doesn't exactly shake anything that could be considered physical, exactly. It's reality _itself_ that shifts. Not a single person notices.

And in a place far removed from any concept of reality that we could ever dream of, there is a being that is very much alive and kicking, and he is laughing like a madman, and his laughter sounds like glass breaking over and over, into shards and fractal shards and beyond and beyond and beyond.

And somewhere _else,_ there is a blue box that is hanging in space just west of the Horsehead Nebula, and inside that box, there is a Time Lord who is sitting in the library, sipping at a cup of freshly-made tea.

And just for a moment, without really knowing why, this Time Lord pauses, midway to taking another sip of tea.

And inexplicably –

he shivers.

 

 

**end**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's all, folks.
> 
> I can't think of anything to say here apart from 'thank you for reading', 'i hope you enjoyed it' and 'maybe consider leaving a review? thanks', so I figured I might as well finish this off with the joke that the CORDIS is disguised as in this story. 
> 
>  
> 
> _A man buys a pet parrot and brings him home. But the parrot starts insulting him and gets really nasty, so the man picks up the parrot and tosses him into the freezer to teach him a lesson. He hears the bird squawking for a few minutes, but all of a sudden the parrot is quiet. The man opens the freezer door, the parrot walks out, looks up at him and says, "I apologize for offending you, and I humbly ask your forgiveness."_
> 
>  
> 
> _The man says, "Well, thank you. I forgive you."_
> 
>  
> 
> _The parrot then says, "If you don't mind my asking, what did the chicken do?"_


End file.
